Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/198

 Angel Face was sputtering.

“You didn’t said no such thing! You said, ‘Scout Three,’ and I’m Scout Three, myself! You wouldn’t a-told One to put it away when you’d told One to bring it!”

The Scout Master fell into deep meditation. The sword handle was used to scratch the tumbled head.

“Fellows,” said the Scout Master, dropping into a confidential tone, “I guess Angel Face is right. I guess, by Gum and by Golly! I did tell him to put away the hose, and I guess I told Two to put away the broom, and I guess I didn’t tell One to do anything, which is for the reason Ole Bill’s so fat it’s cruelty to animals to make him move anyway!”

The Scout Master sheathed the sword, combed the Dutch hair with soiled fingers, wiped the face on a particularly dirty sleeve, and stuffed in the tail of a shirt very much in evidence.

“Scouts, use your lipsticks and disband for the day!” came the order.

Then the Scout Master walked up in front of Jamie, took a decided stand and looked at him inquiringly, while Bill and the Nice Child and Angel Face ranged themselves near, their eyes highly expectant.

Jamie, sick though he might have been, Scot though he surely was, remembered back dimly to the time when he was a boy and fought imaginary Indians and hunted with wooden guns and flourished wooden swords and made wagons with rocking wheels and carried in his anatomy a