I see that my young friend here is a most capable secret service agent." "We're only small boys--we belong to the infantry," I said, for I just couldn't help blurting it out.
Well, we all went inside and I could see that the Commissioner and the detectives kept very near the old gentleman as if they didn't have much use for his laughing and his pleasant talk.

I guess maybe they were used to that kind of thing, and he couldn't fool them.
When we got into his library I saw books all around on the shelves, hundreds of them I guess, and the desk was covered with papers and there was a picture of Mark Twain with "Best regards to Mr.Donnelle," written on it.

Gee whit taker, I thought when I looked around; maybe Mr.Donnelle is a deep-dyed spy all right, but he's sure a high-brow.
"You'd have to take an elevator to get up to him," I whispered to Pee-wee.
"Shhh," Pee-wee said, "maybe he isn't dyed so very deep--there's different shades of dyes." "Maybe he's only dyed a light gray or a pale blue," I said.
Then Mr.Donnelle got out a big fat red book that said on it "Who's Who in America" and, jiminy, I'm glad I never had to study it, because it had about a million pages.

I hate biography anyway--biography and arithmetic.

Then he turned to a certain page.
"Now, gentlemen," he said, "if you will just read this I will then consent to go with you," and he smiled all over his face.
The four men leaned over and began reading, but Pee-wee and I didn't because they didn't ask us and Boy Scouts don't butt in.
"I bet it tells all about German spies and everything, and now he's going to make a full confession," Pee-wee said; "maybe our names will be in the New York papers, hey ?" "They'll be more likely to be in the fly-paper," I said; "there's something funny about this." "I bet he was going to blow up some ships," Pee-wee said.
"I bet he'll blow us up in a minute," I told him; because I could see that he was saying something to the men while they all looked at the book, and that the whole four of them were laughing--especially Mr.Ellsworth.
"It was the elder boy who discovered it," I heard him say, smiling all the while.
"Good night!" I said to Pee-wee, "I thought we had a German in custody, but instead of that.