“Hello, Timmy!”

“’Lo, Reade.”

“Warm night,” observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from the street corner to wipe his perspiring face and neck with his handkerchief.

“Middling warm,” admitted Timmy Finbrink.

Yet the heat couldn’t have made him extremely uncomfortable, for Tom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School, smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he could make out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch of the street.

Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduated a few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.

Tom, himself, had been graduated, three years before, from the fine old Central Grammar, whence, in his estimation, all the “regular” boys came.  As a North Grammar boy, Timmy was to be regarded only with easygoing indifference.  Yet a tale of woe quickly made Tom Reade his young fellow citizen’s instant ally.

“Aren’t you out pretty late, Timmy, for a boy who isn’t even a regular high school freshman as yet?” inquired Reade, with another smile.  “It’s almost nine-thirty, you know.”

“Don’t I know?” wailed Timmy Finbrink, with something of a shiver.  “It’s getting later every minute, too, and I’m due for a trouncing when I do go in, so what’s the odds?”

“Who’s going to give you that trouncing?” Tom demanded.

“My father,” replied Timmy Finbrink.

“What have you been doing?”

“Pop told me to be upstairs and in bed by nine o’clock, without fail,” Timmy explained.  “I came along just five minutes ago, and found that pop has the house planted for me.  I can’t slip in without his knowing it.”

“Oho!  So your father has the other members of the family stationed where they can see you, whichever way you go into the house?” asked Reade, with genuine interest in the unfortunate Timmy.

“Nope,” explained Timmy, with another shiver.  “Mother and sister are away visiting, and pop is all alone in the house.”

“But he can’t watch both the front and back doors at the same time,” Reade suggested hopefully.

“Can’t he do just that, though?” sputtered Timmy.  “I’ve been scouting on tip-toe around the house to get the lay of the land.  Pop is smoking his pipe, and has placed his chair so that he can see both the back and the front doors, for he has the room doors open right through.  There isn’t a ghost of a show to get in without being seen –­and pop has the strap on a chair beside him!” finished Timmy, with an anticipatory shiver.

“Timmy, you’re a fearfully slow boy,” Tom drawled.

“What do you mean?”

“I can fix it so you can get into the house while your father is doing something else,” Tom declared.

“Can you?  How?  Ring the front door bell, while I slip in at the back door?”

“Nothing as stale as that,” scoffed Tom Reade.  “That wouldn’t call for any brains, you see.  Come along and we’ll look over the lay of the land.  Cheer up, Timmy!  You’ll have plenty of chance to slip into the house, get upstairs, undressed and be in bed before your father has time to get over the surprise that’s coming to him.”

“What are you going to-----” Timmy began breathlessly, but Tom interrupted him with: 

“Keep quiet, and be ready to follow orders fast.”

As they gained the front gate of the Finbrink yard Tom’s keen eyes noted a brick lying on the grass.  As that was just what he wanted, he pounced upon it.

“Now, Timmy, do you know where you can find a fairly good-sized bottle –­without going into the house or taking the risk of being seen by your father?”

“Yes; there’s one back of the house, with the ashes,” Timmy answered eagerly.

“Go and get it, and don’t make any noise.”

Timmy disappeared in the darkness beyond, but soon returned carrying an empty quart bottle.

“Good enough!” whispered Reade, eyeing the bottle with cordial interest.  Then he noiselessly approached the house, laying the brick on the grass under one of the front windows.

“Now, Timmy, you slip around to the back of the house,” whispered the young schemer.  “Just as soon as you hear a crash you watch your swiftest chance to slip into the house and upstairs to bed.  Understand?”

“Sure!  What you-----”

“Don’t stop to ask questions.  Get on your mark and look out for your own best interests!”

Rejoicing in the possession of such a valuable ally as Tom Reade, Timmy vanished in the darkness.  Tom Reade waited until he judged that the youngster must be in position near the back door.  Now Tom gripped the bottle in his left hand, crouching over the brick.

With his felt hat in his right hand, Tom reached up, hitting a window pane smartly with the hat.  At the same instant he brought the bottle crashing down over the brick.

As the bottle smashed against the brick Mr. Finbrink, in the dining room of the house, jumped up so quickly that he dropped his pipe.

“Some young rascal has smashed a front window!” he gasped, as he bolted into the parlor.

That was just what the noise had sounded like, and Tom Reade had intended that it should do so.

“I’ll catch the young scamp!” gasped Mr. Finbrink, making a rush for the front door, which he pulled open.

Pausing an instant, he heard the sound of running feet in the distance.

“The young scoundrel went west, and he has a good start,” grunted Mr. Finbrink, as he gave chase in that direction.  “Hang it, I don’t believe I can catch him!”

That guess proved well founded.  After running a short distance Mr. Finbrink halted.  He had not caught sight of the fugitive, nor could he now hear the running steps.

“I wonder how many panes of glass the young scamp broke?” muttered the irate Mr. Finbrink.

Retracing his steps quickly, Mr. Finbrink halted in front of his house, scanning the windows.  Not a crack in a window pane could he discern, which was not remarkable, in view of the fact that no panes of glass had been broken.

“I need a lantern,” Mr. Finbrink said to himself, and went inside the house.  Soon afterwards he came out with a lighted lantern, and began his inspection.  Three windows showed no sign of damage.  Nor did the fourth.  Then Mr. Finbrink chanced to glance down at the ground.  There rested the brick, the fragments of the broken bottle lying around it.

“Say, what’s that?  What’s that?” ejaculated Mr. Finbrink, much puzzled.  Soon, however, he began to see light on the riddle.  His lips parted in a grin; the grin became a chuckle.

“Humph!  That goes ahead of anything I ever had the brains to think up when I was a boy,” laughed the man.  “That’s a good one!  It sounded for all the world as though someone had smashed one of my windows with a brick-bat.  Ha, ha, ha!  That’s an all right one!  I’d be willing to shake hands with the boy who put up that joke on me.  How about my own Timmy, I wonder?  No; Timmy wouldn’t be smart enough for this one –­but he may have smart friends.  I’ll look up that young hopeful of mine!”

With that purpose in view, the lantern still in his hand, Mr. Finbrink passed into the house and then up the back stairs.  On the next floor he pushed open the door of a room, holding the lantern high as he scanned the bed.

There lay Master Timmy, covered only with a sheet, his head sunk in the depths of a pillow, eyes tightly closed, and breathing with almost mechanical rhythm.

“Oh, you’re asleep, aren’t you?” demanded his father, in a low, ironical voice.  “How long have you been asleep, Tim?”

But Timmy’s only answer was the beginning of a snore.

“Are you very tired, Timmy?” continued his father craftily.

Still no answer.

Mr. Finbrink held the lantern so that the rays shone fully against the boy’s closed eyelids.  Any youngster genuinely asleep would have opened his eyes instantly, and Mr. Finbrink knew it.  But Timmy began to snore in earnest.

“I’m glad you sleep so soundly,” went on Mr. Finbrink.  “It shows, boy, what a clear conscience you have!  No guile in your heart!  But I wish you’d wake up and tell me who broke the bottle against the brick and made me sprint down the street.”

Still young Master Timmy snored.

“In your sleeve you’re laughing, to think how you fooled your father, aren’t you?” murmured Mr. Finbrink.  “Well, it was a good joke, and I admit it, young man, so I’m not going to trounce you this time.  But I’d be glad if you’d wake up and tell me who put you up to that game.”

Master Timmy, however, was disobliging enough to slumber on.

“All right, then,” nodded the father.  “I say again, it was a good joke.  Good night!”

Only a little louder snore served as the son’s answer.  Mr. Finbrink went out, closed the door and his footsteps sounded down the hallway.

“Whew!” gasped Master Timmy, opening his eyes presently.  “That was a mighty narrow squeak!  But I got out of it this time.  That Tom Reade is a sure enough wonder!”

Mr. Finbrink, however, had slipped back, catfooted, and was now outside the door, where he could hear the barely audible mutterings of his son and heir.

“So it was Tom Reade, eh?” murmured Mr. Finbrink, as he started for the stairs in earnest this time.  “I might have guessed it was Tom Reade.  He has genius enough for even greater things than that.  But Timmy has certainly helped, at least, to earn a right not to be strapped this time.”  Then the father returned to his chair downstairs, to resume his interrupted smoke.  Within the next half hour Mr. Finbrink chuckled many a time over the remembrance of the pranks of his boyhood days.

“But we had no Tom Reade in our crowd in those good old days,” he repeated to himself several times.  “If we had had a Tom Reade among us, I think we would have beaten any crowd of boys of to-day!”

Meanwhile Tom’s love of mischief was speeding him into other experiences ere he reached his bed that night.  Some of the consequences of his mischievous prank were to be immediate, others more remote.

“Humph!  But that did sound just like a window breaking,” Tom chuckled as he slowed down to a walk.  “Whee!  I’d like to show that one to Dick Prescott.  I wonder if he is up yet?”

Whereupon Tom walked briskly over to the side street, just off Main Street, whereon stood the book store of Prescott, Senior, with the Prescotts’ living rooms overhead.

“Good evening, Mr. Prescott.  Good evening, Mrs. Prescott,” was Tom’s greeting as he walked into the store.  “Is Dick up yet?”

“He went upstairs not more than two minutes ago,” Mrs. Prescott replied.  “He can’t be asleep yet.  Shall I call upstairs to see?”

“On second thought, perhaps not,” Tom replied.  “Thank you, just as much.  But I’ve something new that I’d like to show Dick.  Do you mind if I slip out around the back of the store and try a new trick on him?  It won’t hurt anyone; there’ll be a crash of glass, but it won’t break any good glass –­merely a bottle.”

“I think that perhaps our son needs a little enlivening,” smiled Mr. Prescott.

“Thank you,” answered Tom.  “You won’t be startled, will you, Mrs. Prescott?”

“I don’t see how I can possibly be startled, when I’ve been so kindly warned,” laughed Mrs. Prescott.

Then, as Reade darted from the store, Mrs. Prescott added, to her husband: 

“I think the back of Tom Reade’s head contains more pranks than that of any other boy I ever knew.”

“I don’t imagine our own son is any too far behind him,” replied Mr. Prescott dryly.

A minute or two passed.  Then there sounded under one of the store’s rear windows a most realistic crash of glass.  With it mingled another sound, not so easy to determine, followed by a loud yell and the noise of running feet.  Now, out in the street the cry sounded: 

“There he goes!  Get him!”

“Throw him down and hold him!” yelled another voice.

“Mercy!” gasped Mrs. Prescott.

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear,” smiled Mr. Prescott.  “It’s only the natural aftermath of Tom Reade’s newest startler.”

Was it?

Dick Prescott, after yawning twice, and before starting to disrobe, had decided that his adjustable screen was not fixed in the window of his bedroom as securely as it should be.  In endeavoring to fix it he found it necessary to remove the screen from the window.  Hardly had he done so when, gazing down into the darkness, he saw a dimly visible figure flitting over the ground below.

“Who’s that?” murmured Dick to himself.  “What’s up?”

Whoever the prowler was, he was flitting over to the ash cans set out by a neighbor.  One can contained ashes only, the other contained various kinds of rubbish.  It took the prowler but a moment to find an empty bottle in the second can.  Then he came straight over toward the rear window of the store, which was situated directly under Dick’s own window.

“There’s some mischief afloat,” murmured Dick, unable to recognize his chum in the darkness.  “I can’t get down in time to catch him, but I’ll mark him so that I’ll know him when I overtake him.”

Tip-toeing over to his washstand, Dick quickly picked up the water pitcher.  He returned to his window just as Tom crouched under the store window with a bottle in his left hand and his felt hat in his right.

Then Tom struck the harmless blow against the window, at the same time breaking the bottle.

Smash!

Splash!

“Gracious!” gasped Dick, believing that the store window had been broken.

A yell from Tom arose as the contents of the pitcher deluged him.

Reade was up and away like a shot, reaching the street only to cause a hue and cry to be started after him as he ran.

So swiftly had Tom moved, that by the time Dick Prescott reached the street both pursuers and pursued were a block away and going fast.  Dick was about to join the chase when his father called after him: 

“Dick!  Dick!  Come back here!”

“Yes, sir,” replied young Prescott, halting, wheeling, then springing back.  “But that scoundrel smashed the rear store window!”

“No, he didn’t,” laughed Mr. Prescott.  “That was Tom Reade, and he was playing a trick on you –­with our permission.  Now he’s being chased.  Do you want to go out and aid that crowd in capturing him?”

“Of course I don’t, sir,” replied Dick, who knew full well that such a sturdy high school athlete as Tom Reade was in very little danger of being caught by any citizen runners to be found on the street at that time of night.  “But what did Tom do, Dad?”

“I don’t just know,” admitted the bookseller.  “Reade told us there would be a smash of glass, but that it would be harmless.  He warned your mother, Dick, so that she wouldn’t he startled when it came.  Tom did the right thing in warning your mother.  I wish all boys could realize that only cowards and fools go about frightening women.”

“But something else happened,” insisted Mrs. Prescott.  “I wonder what it was?”

“Suppose we take a lantern and go out in the back yard and see,” proposed Dick.

While Dick was finding the lantern the elder Prescott closed the front of the store, also drawing down the shades for the night.

Dick’s mother followed him into the rear yard.  The fragments of the bottle under one of the store windows told the whole story to one as experienced in jokes as Dick Prescott.

“But see how wet the ground is,” Mrs. Prescott remarked after Dick had explained the trick.

“That was because I didn’t recognize the joker, and emptied the contents of my water pitcher on him just as he broke the bottle,” Dick smiled.  “Poor old Tom.  That was really a shame!”

“But why did you pour the water on him?” asked Mrs. Prescott.

“Because I felt sure that the prowler was up to some mischief, and I wanted to mark him for identification, mother,” Dick explained.  “If we had found a fellow on the street looking as though he had just come out of the river, we’d have known our man, wouldn’t we?  Poor Tom!  I don’t blame him for letting out that yell when that drenching splash hit him.”

“I hope he didn’t get caught by the men who started after him,” sighed Mrs. Prescott.

“Don’t worry about Tom, mother,” urged Dick.  “No one about here could catch him, unless he happened to be a member of the Gridley High School Eleven!”

But was it true that Tom Reade had escaped without disaster?  That remained to be seen.