"That's technology," I said.

"You make me tired," Pee-wee screamed; "suppose all the time you're going you're coming back, too? Let's see you answer that."

"Oh, that's different," Wig said.

"Just the same as when our young hero flies up in the air," I told them.

"And foils a murderer," Connie said; "tell him he's a cute little boy scout, Sam."

"Do you know what I'd do if I had my way?" Pee-wee shouted.

"How many guesses do we have?" I asked him.

"I'd foil those profiteers, that's what I'd do," he said. "Fifteen cents for a cone! I can get three cones for that."

"And still you wouldn't be satisfied," Westy told him.

"Well, if I had your way with me, I'd give it to you," I told him; "but I left it home on the piano."

"Did you hear what that doughnut-man was saying about overhead expenses?" the kid shouted. "I looked up, but I didn't see any. There wasn't even a roof."

Laugh! I thought I'd fall in a fit.

"You can bet I know an overhead expense when I see one," he said, all the while trudging along the road, "and there wasn't any there."

"Overhead expenses are inside," Westy said; "they're the expenses of running a business. It might be the price of a carpet for the floor, see?"

"All you need is a pair of white duck trousers and your diploma with a pink ribbon around it," I told him. "Who in the world taught you all that? You must be studying accountancy."

"A whatancy?" Connie asked.

"That shows how crazy you are," Pee-wee yelled; "how can a carpet that you walk on be overhead? Tell me that!"

"That's easy," I told him; "isn't the roof underfoot? You stand on the roof and it's underfoot. Your overhead expenses may be down in the cellar. Just the same as a scout can do a good turn while he's walking straight ahead. Deny it if you dare?"

"You're crazy," Pee-wee fairly screamed.

"I admit it," I told him.

After we had walked a little way, Westy said, "Just the same, Pee-wee's right, the same as he usually isn't. It would be a good stunt for us to foil those profiteers."

"Only we haven't got any tinfoil," I said.

"Shut up, you're the worst of the lot!" Pee-wee yelled at me. "We've got eighteen dollars left from the movie show, haven't we? I say let's buy some flour and sugar and eggs and cinnamon and ink and glue and make tenderflops and foil the profiteers; that's what I say!"

I said, "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd like to know how you're going to use ink and glue making tenderflops. They'd be kind of sticky, wouldn't they?"

"Sure," Westy said, "and they'd be a kind of a blackish white, using ink."

"He means fountain-pen ink," Connie said, "that's more digestible, it's thinner."

"You're crazy!" the kid yelled. "Wouldn't we have to make signs and glue them up? You can't print with cinnamon or flour, can you? I say let's get all the stuff we need and have Roy make tenderflops and I'll stand on top of the car and shout that they're all smoking hot, and for everybody to be sure to get them for they're only the small sum of two for a cent. I just happened to think of it," he said, "it's an insulation."

"You mean inspiration," Westy said.

"You know what I mean," Pee-wee hollered.

"Suppose you should flop off the top of the car?" I asked him, because there's no telling what may happen when Pee-wee gets to shouting.

"We'd charge extra for that," Connie said.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote C: Technicality is probably what was meant.]



CHAPTER XXXVI

A FRIEND IN NEED

Now I'll tell you about tenderflops, because I'm the only one that goes to Temple Camp who knows how to make them. I guess you know what a tenderfoot is; it's a new scout. He's supposed to be tender, see? So a tenderflop is a flip-flop that's named after a tenderfoot, because it's supposed to be tender. There are no such things as tough scouts, so of course, there can't be any such things as tough tenderflops. That's what you call logic.

Now the way that you make tenderflops is with flour and salt and water and cinnamon. You can use eggs if you want to, but you don't have to. Once I tried peanut butter in them, but they weren't much good. If you put a little maple syrup in, that makes them sweet. Once I made some at home when Charlie Danforth was there and I put wintergreen in, and my sister Marjorie said that was the reason he never came any more. Cinnamon is better; safety first.

Now the way I usually do is, just when they're frying and beginning to get kind of nice and toasted, sort of, I press my scout badge down on them and that makes a kind of a trade mark on them. It says BE PREPARED. That's our motto. It doesn't mean anything about the tenderflops.

* * * * *

In about an hour, back we came along the road with a big bag of flour and a bag of salt and a couple of big jugs of maple syrup and some cinnamon. We had on scout smiles, too.

"Down with profiteering," Connie shouted.

"Pee-wee forever!" I said. "Hurrah, for Hoover, Junior! Food will kill the profiteers, don't taste it—I mean waste it."

We had to pay admission fees to get in, but what did we care? We knew the government was on our side, because wasn't the government arresting profiteers?

Believe me, we had some triumphal march across the grounds to our car. I had a bag of flour over my shoulder and my jacket was all white and my face, too. I guess I looked like a clown. I should worry. The cinnamon made the smallest bundle, but we had Westy carry it, because Pee-wee likes cinnamon. Safety first. We had Pee-wee carry the glue, because if he ate that, it would only stick his mouth shut. Believe me, we were some parade.

There were a lot of automobiles parked outside the grounds by that time, and the place was filled with people. The animals on the merry-go-round were running away as fast as they could, and girls were screaming for fear they'd fall off—you know how they always do. There were men shouting for people to come and see their shows for a dime, ten cents, and there were shooting galleries and everything. Sandwiches were thirty cents and the bread on them was stale, because Wig bought one. There was a brass band playing, too.

A lot of people were looking up at our car; I guess they were wondering about it; and just as we were pushing through the crowd, a couple of the head men came down off the platform and one of them said:

"What are you going to do with all that stuff, you boys?"

Westy said, "We're going to make cakes and sell them. We're going to do it inside the car."

We all just laid down our bundles and stood around, kind of scared and disappointed. But anyway, the people who were standing around saw that we were scouts, and most all of them were smiling at us.

The man said, "Well, I guess you've got another guess. You just pack that stuff in there, and go about your business if you don't want to get into a heap of trouble. We'll look after this car."

I guess Westy was kind of flabbergasted, so I spoke up and said, "We've got a right inside of our own car. We've got a right to cook in there if we want to. What harm does that do? Haven't we got a right to try to reduce the cost of living? If you want to start this car going, go ahead and do it, but I tell you beforehand that the brakes don't work. And you can keep off of our car, too."

The man said I was an impudent little some-thing-or-other, and he was just starting to pick up the bag of flour when, good night, all of a sudden a little man stepped out from the crowd. All I noticed about him was that he had a cigar in his mouth and his hat was kind of on the side. But, oh, boy, I heard his voice good and plain.

He said, "Look here, you. What's all this trouble about? You mustn't think you can browbeat these boys, because you can't. See? I'm telling you the law and you can take it or leave it just as you like. If you've got any kick, go to the railroad. If you're not satisfied to wait until this car goes away, start it going. You stand between those two tracks or on the platform of that car, and you're on the property of the United States Railroad Administration. I'm a lawyer and I'm telling you that. It's you that happens to be here, not these boys. Here's a crowd of people being fleeced—eating sandwiches that aren't fit to throw to a dog and drinking red lemonade that would die of shock if it saw a lemon. Twenty cents for a cup of coffee that they ought to pay me a dollar for drinking! Now you boys just climb aboard and let's see what you can do. You've got the American people in back of you. I've heard about you scouts; now let's see what you can do. Get aboard and get busy. You're here, because you're here——"

"That's just what we said," Pee-wee shouted.

"All right," the man said; "climb up and I'll take care of the legal end of it. I'm for the Boy Scouts to the last ditch. I once tried a case just like this. Let 'em talk to the car. Climb up and see what you can. I don't believe you know how to boil water!"

He just sat down on the lowest step of the platform and stuck his hat on the side of his head awfully funny, and lighted his cigar. Everybody began laughing. The people were all on our side, that's one sure thing, anyway.



CHAPTER XXXVII

TENDERFLOPS AND OTHER FLOPS

"He's right," Pee-wee whispered to me; "that's a good argument. Because if a thing is somewhere where it shouldn't be, if it isn't there on purpose, why then if somebody gets into it that doesn't belong on that place, but belongs in it, he's trespassing just as much, because anyway, if he took it away it wouldn't be there. See?"

"Absolutely, positively," I told him. "It's as clear as mud."

"Reduce it to a common denominator," Westy said. That fellow is always thinking about school.

"We should bother our heads," I said. "Here we are; even the Supreme Court couldn't deny that."

"They don't have to deny it, we admit it," Connie said.

"We'll stand on our rights!" Pee-wee shouted. "We'll stand on our he——"



"Sure, we'll stand on our heads," Wig said. "Anything to please you."

"Our hereditary rights!" the kid yelled.

"All right, get up and stand on the top of the car," I told him, "and shout. We'll do the rest."

We made a paper hat for the kid and tied a towel around his waist for an apron, because we wanted him to look like a chef. I gave him a saucepan from Westy's kit and told him to wave it around while he was talking, because I thought, kind of, it might make the people hungry.

Pretty soon we could hear him marching back and forth on the roof of the car, and shouting at the top of his lungs. Even before I got the stove hot there was a big crowd standing all around outside, laughing.

He kept shouting, "Here they are! They're all smoking hot! The celebrated Boy Scout tenderflops! Flopped by the only original Boy Scout flopper! They're one cent each! Eat one and you'll never eat another—I mean you'll never eat anything else! O-o-o-o-oh! They're all red hot! The kind we eat around the camp-fire! Only one cent! None genuine unless stamped BE PREPARED! The famous scout tenderflops! They melt in your mouth! They MELT in your MOUTH!"

"Good night!" I said to the fellows; "listen to him."

By that time I was frying them six at a clip, while Connie and Wig and Westy were passing them around on pieces of board and scooping in the money. All of a sudden I heard Pee-wee's voice; it seemed to be in the stove. I opened the lid and heard him calling down the stovepipe, "Send me some up here so I can be eating them; it'll make the people hungry."

"That's a good idea," Wig said; "let's all be eating them, and let's look kind of happy every time we take a bite. It pays to advertise."

We passed a saucepan full of them up to Pee-wee and charged them up to advertising. Westy said, "That's what you call overhead expense."

Believe me, that kid was some overhead expense, all right.

"You have to demonstrate," he shouted down.

"You're a pretty good demonstrator," a man called up to him.

I was laughing so hard I could hardly fry the cakes fast enough. There was a big crowd outside, just scrambling for them, and we had Westy's aluminum coffee-pot about half full of pennies. Up on the car, Pee-wee was strutting up and down, waving the saucepan with one arm and holding a cake in his other hand and shouting, "O—oh, to taste one! Just to TASTE one! Watch me eat one! Mm-mmm! They're one cent each! None genuine unless stamped BE PREPARED! Send up some more, you fellows!"

After a little while we stopped to rest, and we asked Mr. Pedro to come in and have lunch with us. In the afternoon we went around the grounds and had some rides on the merry-go-round and tried our luck throwing baseballs at a negro man. I won a Japanese doll. We found out that the price of sandwiches had gone down to ten cents. Waffles were selling two for a cent and going begging—that's what a man told us. He said crullers were off the market. The coffee-man wanted to buy tenderflops wholesale from us, but we wouldn't sell him any. Believe me, we had all the visitors at that place eating out of our hands—that's no joke either; it's true.

About four o'clock I mixed up all the stuff we had left. Already we had eight dollars and we had only spent about four. So we had over four dollars' profit. It would have been bigger, except for the overhead expense. It costs a lot to advertise.

On toward evening the crowd was even bigger. That was because everybody was telling everybody else to see the Boy Scouts selling stamped cakes from their private car. We were a what-do-you-call-it—an institution.

All of a sudden came the grand climax. I was just laying the last tenderflops on the boards and trying to scrape enough stuff out of the pan to make just two or three more, when I saw a wagon stop right alongside the car. Oh, please excuse me a minute while I laugh!

Now we had seen that wagon most all afternoon, because a man was using it to cart sawdust from the ice-house and sprinkle it on the race-track. I suppose he did that on account of the races which were going to be at five o'clock.

Anyway, he got down from his wagon and came over to the platform and said, "Let's try a couple of them floperetts I'm hearin' so much about."

I said, "Is this your last load?"

He said yes, it was, and that after he got it sprinkled on the track, he was coming back for more floperetts—that was what he called them.

That man ate a whole board full and I called up to Pee-wee, "There isn't any more batter, so we're on the home stretch. Shout good and loud and tell them it's their last chance."

Just at that very minute I heard a locomotive whistle.

"Good night," I said; "I bet it's twenty-three for us."

"What's the difference?" Westy said; "there's no more batter, anyway, and I'm tired out."

"We have a coffee-pot full of money," I told him.

After I had fried the last tenderflop, I went outside to take a good rest. It was hot working over that stove. Up on the car, Pee-wee was stamping back and forth, waving the pan and screaming for all he was worth.

"Look!" I said to the fellows; "just take one look at him. Get your kodak, Westy."

"Only a few more left!" Pee-wee was yelling. "One cent while they last! None genuine——" and so on, and so on.

By that time I could see a freight train backing in toward us. It was coming very slow and a couple of men from it were running ahead to open the gates. It just crept along—hardly moved. There were men on top and one turning the brake handle.

One of them called out, "Watch your step there, you kid!"

"They're all smoking hot!" Pee-wee yelled, and never paid any attention to him.

"Brace your feet, Sonny," the man shouted.

Pee-wee didn't pay any attention, just kept marching up and down, waving the pan and yelling, "There are no more tenderflops to be flopped! Your last chance! Get a flop——"

And then, good morning sister Jane, there was just a little bunk and there was Pee-wee swinging the saucepan and trying to balance himself on one leg.

"Get—get a flop——" he was shouting.

And then, all of a sudden, around he went, and off the roof, kerflop into the load of sawdust.

It was the end of a perfect day.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

ALL ABOARD

The sawdust was all wet on account of there being ice in that ice-house, and it stuck all over our young hero's clothes and face, so he looked as if he were covered with very coarse sandpaper.

We hauled him out and stood him up, saucepan and all. Even he had a tenderflop with a big bite out of it in one hand, and it was all covered with wet sawdust like some new kind of frosting. The crowd went crazy. I thought one of those trainmen would have a fit, he laughed so hard.

I said, "Never mind, Kid, you died for a good cause; only don't open your mouth, or you'll swallow about a quart of sawdust."

Oh, boy, it makes me laugh whenever I think of it. Westy had a headache from laughing. His mother said it was from eating tenderflops, but I was the one that heard him laugh.

Anyway, that was the end of our adventures.

We cleaned our young hero up and brushed him off, but every time he spoke that night, he said he tasted sawdust.

The train people fixed our coupling and in about an hour we were rolling merrily out through the gates on the end of that long freight train. I guess it couldn't have been Number Twenty-three, because nothing happened. Anyway, I bet the profiteers were glad to get rid of us. Pee-wee said we "dealt them a mortal blow." Westy said we "felled them to the ground with a frying pan."

Anyway, we had twenty-seven dollars, counting what we made out of the movie show, and not counting the fifty that Mr. Temple had sent us. That wasn't so bad when you remember that we had only forty-two cents when we started.

Sometime that night we were left in the freight yards at Jersey City, but we were all too sleepy to notice anything. Anyway, what's the use of being awake when you're in Jersey City. Early in the morning, a Northern local picked us up, and pretty soon we were rattling along the shore of our own river. You can bet it looked good to us. At about half-past seven, we were left on the sidetrack near the Bridgeboro Station.

"All the commuters will be coming down for the seven fifty-two," Wig said "Let's get up on the roof and give them a Scout Sing."

It looked good, after that crazy trip, to see all the things that we knew so well. There was Bennett's candy store, and there was the Royal Movie Theatre just around the corner. Pretty soon people began straggling along for the seven fifty-two, and a lot of them stood about, gaping at our car with its sign.

Buffalo 398 Mls.—BREWSTER'S CENTER—N. Y. 30 Mls.

So we all got up on the roof and sat there in a row, singing. People down below waved to us and Connie's father shouted hello to us, but we got to singing so loud, we couldn't hear all the things that people said. Everybody down there knew us, and we knew they knew we were crazy, so we didn't care.

"All together!" Wig said.

"Go!" Connie shouted.

"We started out to wander, We never meant to roam; We went, because we went, And now we're home, we're home. We're going to go to school, oh, joy! But we're not in a hurry; We've got twenty-seven dollars and a railroad car; WE SHOULD WORRY!"

* * * * *

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber's note

The following changes have been made to the text:

Page 156: "Just as we go our feet" changed to "Just as we got our feet".

Page 206: "him. "it's as clear" changed to "him. "It's as clear".