Pee-Wee Harris Adrift | Page 8

to be a scout than it is to let fellers get to be arrested? Even--even Roosevelt said the scouts were important, but he didn't say it was important you should catch fellers, did he?"
"That's some argument," Detective Slippett said, half smiling.
"I know even better arguments than that," Pee-wee boasted.
"Well," said Detective Spotson rather more gruffly, "you'd better look out how you try to interfere with the law, young feller, 'cause first thing you know you'll find yourself in jail. And you'd better keep away from this outfit down here, too. Now you chase yourself back to where you belong--see?"
"You thought you were going to scare me, didn't you?" Pee-wee said.
CHAPTER VI
THE MISSIONARY
Pee-wee retraced his steps back across the field feeling righteous and triumphant. To him the interests of the Boy Scouts of America superseded every other interest and like the true missionary he did not scruple overmuch as to means employed.
As he emerged Into the alley, Keekie Joe, looking frightened and apprehensive, appeared out of the surrounding squalor. It was a characteristic of Keekie Joe that he always appeared without warning. A long habit of sneaking had given him this uncanny quality. Suddenly Pee-wee, in the full blush of his heroic triumph, was aware of the poor wretch shuffling along beside him.
"Wot'd they say ter yer? Wot'd yer tell 'em?" he asked fearfully.
"I didn't tell them anything," Pee-wee said. "As long as the fellers got away they won't blame you. Anyway, if you'd have been there they'd have been caught, because you didn't know those detectives because they're strangers around here."
"How'd you know them?" Keekie Joe inquired.
"Gee, scouts are supposed to know everything," Pee-wee informed him.
Keekie Joe gave a side glance at Pee-wee as he shuffled along at his side. He was rather interested in a class of boys who knew all officials on sight; here indeed was something worth knowing. "Yer spotted 'em?" he asked incredulously.
"Sure I did," said Pee-wee with great alacrity; "because scouts are supposed to be observant, see? I saw them in Northvale once. But, believe me, I didn't holla. Oh, no! I ran over and told the fellers and they all got away, so as long as you didn't leave them in the lurch it was all right. So now will you join the scouts? They always carry licorice jaw-breakers in their pockets," he added as a supplementary inducement; "anyway I do--lemon ones too, and strawberry ones."
"How many is in your gang?" Joe asked.
"Nobody yet," said Pee-wee, "because I haven't got it started. But if you'll join in with me we'll start one. You're supposed to hike and run a lot but if you want to run after fire engines and ambulances it's all right." He said this because of the favorite outdoor sport of Barrel Alley of trailing fire engines and ambulances. "So will you join?" he added.
They paused on the frontier of Joe's domain in the rear of the big bank building which fronted on Main Street. Here was the makeshift sidewalk of barrel staves whence the alley derived its name. "You have to be, kind of, you have to be a sort of a--kind of wild and reckless to join the scouts," Pee-wee pleaded. "Maybe you're kind of scared on account of thinking that you have to be civilized, but you don't; you don't even eat off plates," he added with sudden inspiration. "We cook potatoes just like tramps do, right out in the woods; we hold them on sticks over the fire. So now will you join? If you will you'll be elected patrol leader because there's only one to vote for you and I'm the one and I'm a majority. See? So if you come in right now you'll be sure to have a majority and I'll buy some Eskimo pies, too."
"Der yez swipe de pertaters?" Joe asked.
"We don't exactly kind of what you would call swipe them," Pee-wee was forced to confess. "But we get them in ways that are just as good. They taste just as good as if they were swiped, honest they do," he hastened to add. "So will you come down by the river with me? That old railroad car down there is our meeting place and it's got a stove in it and everything and there won't be any one there to-day except just you and me and we'll have an election and I'll vote for you and you can vote for yourself and so you'll be sure to be elected patrol leader. And after that I'll show you what you have to do and most of it is eating and things like that. So will you say yes?"
Keekie Joe was not to be lured by promises of "eats," though he was curious about the old railroad car. His answer to Pee-wee was characteristic