him. “It’s the same as premises, only different.”

So the next thing we had to think of was how to get the car past Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop, because repair shops can’t be moved like lunch wagons. And strategy doesn’t go with men who keep garages.

So the next thing we did was to go and ask Mr. Slausen if he’d be willing to let us take down a few boards from his ramshackle old building just above where the tracks went through if we promised to put them up again.

“Maybe my father’s going to get a flivver,” Pee-wee piped up, “and maybe if I run it I’ll have a smash-up, and I’ll get you to fix it.”

But that didn’t go with Mr. Slausen. He said, very gruff like, “You kids better go home and study your lessons and not be trying to move railroad cars.”

I said, “Scouts always keep their word, Mr. Slausen, and if we say we’ll put the boards back up again, we will.”

He said, “Well, I guess we won’t take down any boards, so you better run along.” And then he started to talk to a man and didn’t pay any more attention to us.

Just as we were going out Connie Bennett said, “Well, we’ll have to think of another way, that’s all. It’s got to be did somehow.”

“Sure,” I said; “scouts can always think of a way.”

Mr. Slausen must have heard us, for he turned around and shouted after us, very cross, “I want you youngsters to keep away from here. Understand?”

Westy said, “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know anything we can do,” Dorry Benton said to me as we were going out.

“We’ll think of a way,” I said; “don’t worry.”

Now that’s all there was to our call on Mr. Slausen, and it wasn’t much, and nobody said anything important enough to remember, but what we said made a lot of trouble for us just the same. You’ll see.

“All we’d have to do would be to move his vulcanizing table,” Westy said, “and we could run the car right through.”

“Well, we should worry,” I said. “We’ll move Tony’s Lunch Wagon, vulcanizing table and all, and then we can think about the next step.”

“What do you mean, vulcanizing table?” Pee-wee shouted.

“The counter where he puts the inner tubes in doughnuts,” I told him.

So then, as long as it was Saturday and we couldn’t do any more that day, we decided to go up to my house and send invitations to all the troops in the different towns near Bridgeboro. Pee-wee wanted to go around like Paul Revere and notify them all, but I said no, because I knew he’d only end up in some candy store miles and miles from home.

This was the invitation we sent. It’s kind of crazy, but what did we care, because in my patrol we’re all crazy anyway. We ought to be called the Squirrels instead of the Silver Foxes, because we’re all nutty.

I guess when they got these invitations they thought we were all maniacs from Maine, hey? What did we care? Not in the least, quoth we.

After we got the invitations mailed we decided to forget the moving problem and go to the moving pictures. After that we went to the station and sat in the car a little while and talked. As long as we were so near we thought we might as well go over to Bennett’s for cones, and as long as we were in there for cones we thought we might as well get some gumdrops. And as long as we were getting some gumdrops we thought we might as well get some molasses taffy for our young hero so as to stop him from talking. Believe me, that’s one thing I like. I don’t mean talking, I mean molasses taffy. I’m stuck on it. So is the tissue paper that comes around it. We got a nickel’s worth of lemondrops, too, because yellow is our patrol color. We’re always thinking of our patrol, that’s one good thing about us.

CHAPTER VIII—RECONNOITERING

Now nothing happened the next week except going to school, and, gee whiz, there’s no adventure in that. The best thing about school is Saturday because there isn’t any. You can talk about Good Friday, but good Saturdays are good enough for me. Anyway, it’s funny how great men always get born on holidays, like Washington and Lincoln. That’s the thing I like best about those men—their birthdays. That’s one thing I’m thankful for about Thanksgiving, too; it always comes on a holiday. But one thing I hate, and that is hop-toads.

So now that school is over for the week I’ll tell you about the big rally. Wasn’t that a quick week? Believe me, when I’m writing stories I take a hop, skip and a jump from one Saturday to another. Except in vacation.

That rally was a big success. By ten o’clock on Saturday morning there were seven troops, not counting our own, in Downing’s lot ready to do or die. One came from East Bridgeboro, two came from Ennistown, one came from Northvale, one came from Little Valley, and two came from Sloan Hollow. There were seven troops and nineteen patrols. We have three patrols, so that makes twenty-two. There were a hundred and seventy-nine appetites altogether.

They all wanted to know what was the big idea, so I got up on a grocery box and made a speech. General Blakeley inspiring his troops. Oh, boy!

I said, “Scouts, that old railroad car over near the station belongs to us. It’s our trooproom. It has to be moved on this old track down to the river. Tony Giovettioegleirotti, who keeps that lunch wagon, has defied us. We bought twenty-four frankfurters from him and he wouldn’t move his wagon. So what are we going to do about it?”

“Foil him!” Pee-wee shouted.

“We haven’t got any tinfoil,” someone else hollered.

“Listen,” I said; “everybody keep still. We’re going to have games and scout pace races and things, but nothing to eat. Every scout has to promise that no matter how hungry he is, he won’t go over and buy anything from Tony. I’m going to appoint a committee to go over there and keep smacking their lips, but——”

“I’ll be on that committee!” Pee-wee shouted.

“You’ll be on the ground if you don’t keep still!” I told him. “You fellows are supposed to go over there in small detachments, kind of, and hang around, and jingle the money in your pockets, and act as if you were hungry——”

“I can act that way!” Pee-wee shouted.

“Sure, just act natural,” I told him. “You’ve had practice enough being hungry.”

“What’s the big idea?” somebody called out.

“The big idea is to mobilize all our appetites,” I said. “When Tony sees this whole bunch of scouts—a hundred and seventy-nine appetites—and finds out that none of us is going to go over there and buy a single sandwich from him; when he finds that we spurn his pie, what will he do? He’ll move his wagon over here. That’s high strategy. It’s so high you have to use a stepladder to get up to it. The scout appetite, when it acts in, what d’you call it, unison can move anything!”

“Sure it can!” they all yelled.

“But how are you going to move the car?” some scout or other wanted to