Part 4 (2/2)

Roy, standing on the table, continued:

”SCOUTS AND SCOUTLETS:

”Owing to the high cost of silence, which is as scarce as sugar at these s, I will only detain you a couple of minutes”

”Don't step on the cake,” Doc yelled

”The object of this o into the city to-et soot a list of the things we need, and they add up to four dollars and twenty-two cents If each fellow chips in a quarter, we'll have enough Each fellow that wants to go has to pay his own railroad fare--Alf is going with me, so he should worry

”I don't suppose that Marshall Slade will condescend and we should worry If we're going up to ca our stuff together--the sooner the quicker--keep still, I' how numbers look funny on scout cabins--five, six, seven It reood idea for us to paint the pictures of our patrol animals on the doors and scratch off the numbers, because the way it is now, the cabins all look as if they had automobile licenses, and he said Daniel Boone would drop dead if he saw anything like that--Cabin B 26

_Good night!_”

”Daniel Boone is already dead!” shouted Peewee

”Take a demerit and stay after school,” Roy continued ”So I vote that we buy some paint and see if we can't paint the heads of our three patrol animals on the three cabins Then we'll feel more like scouts and not so much like convicts If we do that, it will be thirty cents each instead of twenty-five”

Before Roy was through speaking, a scout hat was going around and the goodly jingle of coins within it, testified to the troops' enthusias Tom dropped in three quarters, but no one noticed that He seemed abstracted and unusually nervous The hat was not passed to little Alfred McCord Perhaps that was because he was mascot

[Illustration: TOM'S HAND CLUNG TO THE BACK OF THE BENCH Toe 44]

CHAPTER VIII

FIVE, SIX, AND SEVEN

Then To hi to the back of the bench moved nervously, but otherwise he seemed stolid and dull as usual For just a second he breathed almost audibly and bit his lip, then he spoke They listened, a kind of bal silence pervaded the room, because he spoke so seldoh to pay him the tribute of their attention when he really see,” he said, ”and maybe you won't like it

Those three cabins are already taken by a troop in Ohio”

”Which three?” Westy Martin asked, apparently dumbfounded

”Oh boy, suppose that was true!” Roy said, aht of such a possibility

”Which three?” Westy repeated, still apparently in sohed

”Look at the straight face he's keeping,” Doc laughed, referring to Toht as well tell you the truth,” Tos sometimes; maybe you don't understand Maybe it was because I wasn't here last year-- your--our--nuned those cabins to a troop in Ohio They wanted three that were kind of separate from the others and--and--I--I didn't remember”

He see the his head nervously in the interval of silence and staring a about it and they knew it It was not in Tom's nature to ”jolly”