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 agreement about something important and something worth while.”

“Well, then,” said the little Scout, “that’s what ours was, and I’m keeping it, and I am going to go on keeping it. And this one, now this one is a regular flower bed with the bouquets all made up, and this one is Roman stripes like Ben Hur had for his sash when he drove Atair and Aldebaran and Antares and Riegel. Oh, joy! Oh, boy! Wouldn’t it be great stuff if we really had an honest and true amphitheater and horses like that and races like that now? These dinky little races around here where the riders come and sell out the race before they run it, and they draw cuts in the morning to decide who gets to win that day, oh, bah! don’t it make you sick? The world’s getting so rotten they don’t even run the ponies fair any more!”

“I am sorry to say,” said the Bee Master, “that you are about right in your statements. If we don’t call a stern halt, if we don’t make a right about, if we don’t come to our senses pretty soon, we won’t have very much of the ancient honour that obtained among men left anywhere in this world concerning sport or business, either one.”

Then noticing the arresting hand and the grave face of the little Scout, he added: “Are you holding the Scouts level these days?”

There was an instant of hesitation on the part of the Scout Master.