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 wanted it. Of all the things there is to eat in the whole world, I don’t know of anything I like better. Mother likes them, too. Dad doesn’t come in so strong on them ’cause he’s got a stomach himself every once and a while. City Editor and war did it. But as yet, glory be! they haven’t either of them put the grand kibosh on me. The day they do, I’ll leap from the pinnacle (I got ‘pinnacle’ in geography) of the highest rock in the bay and go out with the undertow.”

“That would be pathetic,” said Jamie. “Why do you want to cause your friends such grief and deprive the Bee Master of his partner and me of about the only friend I have on earth, unless the Bee Master has decided to be my friend.”

“Of course the Bee Master is your friend,” said the little Scout. “I knew the Bee Master was your friend the minute I faced up to the jacqueranda and saw you sittin’ on his particular bench. Didn’t you notice me keep straight on coming?”

“I certainly did,” said Jamie. “I registered that fact in my mentality with great pride and pleasure. I shall always remember that when you caught your first view of me, you kept straight on coming.”

“It was the same way with Molly,” said the Scout Master. “First peep I ever got at her I kept right on coming. I walked right up to her and into her just as far as I could get at the first séance. Do you know what a ‘séance’ is?”

Jamie said he did.