I just thought I’d tell you about it so you’ll know. But I wasn’t strolling around with Brent as long as it took to tell it. In a couple of minutes we were back.

He said, “Whatever you do don’t start that stuff with Hervey around. First thing you know he’ll be getting himself in trouble. He’s just about due for a new mix-up with the management.”

I said, “You’re a nice one to be talking that way; you were with Harry Donnelle all the time he was up here.”

He said, “Yes, but now I have to mind the baby.”

“All right,” I told him; “what you say goes.”

From the looks of things it seemed as if none of the others had talked about it, not even Pee-wee. He’s a wise little dumb-bell, I’ll say that for him. So it was all right—for the time being.

After a little while we said good-bye to the girls and started off again on our left-handed hike. They went down to the shore with us and waited while we fixed the boat up and put another plug in the bottom. It was a wooden one. We don’t mind poverty, but rags we can’t stand—not in the flooring of boats.

Warde said, “We want to know where the lake is, inside the boat or outside. We want it to be one place or the other.”

Stella Wingate said, “If you were sea scouts you’d know that some kind of a rag is necessary on every boat in case you want to fly a signal of distress.”

“Sure,” I said; “every time you wave your signal the boat sinks. You might as well take the rag without the boat when you’re sailing; that’s logic.” Brent said, “That’s a very good suggestion.” The girls said they were sorry to see us go. I told them to look the other way, and they wouldn’t see it. They said we seemed to have a lot of fun. Brent was awful funny. He shook hands with them very sober like and he said, “There was a sameness in our lives till we met you. Life was just one thing over and over again.”

“And under,” I said. “Don’t forget our young hero.”

“You girls changed the whole course of our lives,” Warde said. “You have helped us to get somewhere in life. But we don’t know where.”

They said, “Well, you’d better be starting or you’ll never get back to your camp. If you turn to the left at Brookside it will take you straight to Greenvale. There you’ll find the first road to your left and if you take that it will take you into Fox Trail that goes to the left and that will bring you around this lake into the trail you’ve been trying to get away from. So you can keep your resolution and get back to your camp all right.”

Brent said, “That’s just what we want, to get back into the trail we want to get away from.”

Marjorie Eaton said, “There’s a carnival at Greenvale, too.”

“Can we get sodas there?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

Marjorie laughed and said, “Yes, but I think the soda booth is on the right-hand side of the road.”

“Foiled again,” I said.

So then we started. We rowed along the shore toward the outlet. When we came near to the outlet there was the willow tree I told you about. Right near it stood a young fellow close to the shore. He was looking at us and kind of waiting.

The thing I noticed most about him was his eyes, because I couldn’t see them. That was on account of his hat. One good thing, he had a nose because that prevented his hat from falling down over his face. The front of his hat rested right on his nose. He was a kind of a grown-up fellow. His trousers were funny, they were tight at his knees, and then they changed their mind and got wider down near the ground. He had on low shoes—to match his brow, that’s what Brent said. Warde said, “Oh, look at the sharpy.”

“Is that what you call a cookie nibbler?” Brent wanted to know.

I said, “Sure it is, it’s a regular one. They’re so stingy they wear their hats down in front to save their eyesight.”

“I didn’t know there were any of them running wild around here,” Brent said. “Is it against the law to shoot them?”

Jiminy, that cake-eater looked awful funny. He was a rare specimen, kind of. His jacket was long, and it had slanting pockets in it. I don’t know why they have pockets at all, those fellows. They carry crumbs instead of dough, that’s what I heard. He had a kind of a shoe-lace disguised as a necktie.

Brent said, “I wonder where he spends his time.”

“It’s about the only thing he does spend,” I said. “I’ve seen that fellow before, I think he’s staying in Brookside. He goes to the dances in Leeds and Catskills and Athens; I’ve seen him all over. He stands in front of Bartlett’s store down in Catskill. He’s a he-hopper. Those fellows let girls pay their own carfare.”

Brent said, “They allow them on street cars then?”

“Let’s row in and speak to him,” Warde said; “they’re tame, most of them; they’re harmless except when you feed them cake.”

“Sure,” I said; “let’s row in. He’ll talk to us. Why shouldn’t he? Talk is cheap.”