- The boys walk home with Charles Halloway. He sighs when they arrive home and tells Jim to go inside without waking his mother – as long as Jim promises to tell her the whole story over breakfast tomorrow.
- Jim shows Mr. Halloway a ladder built on the side of the house that he uses to come and go in the middle of the night.
- Mr. Halloway laughs. He tells Jim not to come outside again at night for another month.
- But, at the same time, he is nostalgic for his own boyhood.
- Will is told to apologize again to Miss Foley and then report to the Police Chief. Miss Foley will not press charges.
- They walk to their own house. Dad finds Will's ladder nailed into the wall. He lights his pipe and tells Will that he's not acting guilty. He asks why Will confessed to a crime he seems to be innocent of.
- Will tells his father that Miss Foley wants them guilty. He laments that now no one will believe him and Jim.
- Charles tells his son that he believes them.
- Will tries to broach the subject of the carnival's arrival at three in the morning, but the conversation stills.
- Will says he will tell his father everything in a few days. He swears on his mother's honor.