No, Honestly!

Rodney Rathbone has a story to tell, and Dale Jacobs of the Odyssey Times has the tape recorder rolling to catch every word of it. As Rodney tells it, the whole thing began outside Whit's End, where he was generously offering Sam Johnson the use of a signed photograph of "General Robert M. Lee" - for a five-dollar fee - to rescue Sam's history project. A polite stranger looking for directions interrupted the deal and, after one glance at the picture, proved it was a fake: Lee's middle initial was E, he wasn't commander of the whole Confederate army in 1862, and the inscription was written with a felt-tip pen that wouldn't be invented for another century. The stranger introduced himself to Whit as Mark Reed, a sales rep who photographs church directories, and Whit promised to put him in touch with his pastor. But Rodney, stung and suspicious, decided the man knew a little too much about forgery.

So Rodney began following Reed, and after borrowing a radio scanner from his dad's electronics shop, he listened in on Reed's car phone as the salesman booked appointments with families all over the church. Then came a different sort of call - to a man named Harry, full of talk about well-to-do houses, a full Saturday schedule, and working fast. Rodney was sure of it: Reed was setting up the whole congregation to be robbed while they sat for their pictures. The trouble was that nobody would believe him. George Barclay reminded him about the "Send Rodney to Disney World Fund," other families showed him the door, and even Whit pointed out that Rodney has spent years earning a reputation for dishonesty - and that spying on phone calls was hardly an honest way to gather evidence. Still, seeing how desperate Rodney was, Whit agreed to look into it, on the condition that Rodney stay put.

Rodney did not stay put. On Saturday he discovered the appointment times had been switched, raced to the Jacobs house, and slipped in the back door - straight into the waiting hands of Whit and the police, who had quietly arranged the trap themselves. The burglar is caught red-handed in the living room, and over at the church Dale Jacobs snaps a picture of Mark Reed just as the officers arrest the leader of the theft ring.

Now, with the tape recorder still running, Rodney announces that the paper should run a big story about how he saved the town and deserves a medal. Whit suggests that having learned a lesson about honesty, Rodney might try one on humility next. Rodney protests that he has been humiliated plenty already - after all, he has had to tell this story to everybody in town.