Charlie had not thought of it that way before.

“I guess you are right, teacher.”

Bidding her good-bye, he was moving off, when she said:  “Stop one moment.  Whoever that boy is, I wish you’d get him out to Sunday-school.”

“What an idea!” thought Charlie.  “Tim Tyler’s going to Sunday-school!”

In the meantime Wort had been prosecuting his bold investigations.  He strolled down the lane, passing several cottages, and then a fish-house, where several men were splitting and salting fish.  All these were on the left side of the lane.  On the right was a long dock, and in it were several boats.

“There is Tim Tyler,” exclaimed Wort, “and there is his boat.  There is young Tim, the thief!”

It was an old boat that Wort looked into as he stood upon the stairs leading down into the dock.  It was a boat badly battered, like its owner.

“If the red paint could be got off Tim’s nose and put on his boat, it would be better for both,” thought Wort.

Old Tim was fixing a net in the stem of his boat.  Young Tim was in another part of the dock, hunting amid the muddy flats for relics.

“There she is!” said Wort to himself.  He had detected a dipper in the bottom of the boat.  “Now is my chance,” thought Wort.  He reached down to the coveted dipper.  It was a venerable piece of tinware.

“That’s too old to be ours,” reflected the daring Wort.  “Let me turn it over and see if there is a mark on the bottom.  Bah, an old worm!  That is not our dipper.”

“Here, you thief! what are you meddlin’ with that property for?” roared a voice.

It was Old Tim.  His face was red as a boiled lobster, and as he crooked his bare arms and rested them on his hips, they looked like the claws of a mammoth lobster ready to crawl out and seize any offender.

“Guess I’ll go,” thought Wort, and off he hurried to tell the club his ill-success, and that their detective in search of a thief had been called one.

A few minutes later Juggie exclaimed to the disconsolate circle, “Dar’s de organ-grinder.”

It was indeed he hurrying along the lane and turning a troubled face toward the barn, for no monkey came with him.  Had he lost his friend from the far South?

“He gone!” said the grinder, as he reached the boys.  “You sheen him?”

“Seen your monkey?” asked Sid.

“Yes, yes!  You sheen my leetle mun-kee?”

“Why, no.”

“You—­you—­you,” and the grinder swept the circle to find out if any one had seen the lost favorite.  No one had seen him.

“O, O dear!” lamented the grinder excitedly.

Poor organ-grinder! his face was wrinkled as badly as that of his missing assistant when attempting to pick a very bad nut.

“You go—­find—­my—­mun-kee?”

“O, yes,” said the president, “we will hunt.  Come on.”

They scattered, tumbling over fences, climbing shed roofs, diving into corners, shouting, yelling, and stirring up the neighborhood thoroughly.  It did no good.  “My munkee” refused to be found.