Mr. Ellsworth looked surprised and said, “yes.”  And Mr. Bennett was smiling with and awful funny kind of a smile.

“And suppose while he’s on his way he runs plunk into another law.  Goodnight!  What’s he going to do?  Maybe you don’t know which law I mean by another one.  It’s number 3, and I can say it without even looking at the book.  Even if they elect—­”

I guess Mr. Ellsworth could see my voice was I trembling, because he said, “Take your time, Roy, you have us interested.”

I have to admit I was feeling bad, but anyway I said the law right off without looking at the book.

3.  A scout is helpful.

He must be prepared at any time to save life, help injured persons, and share the home duties.  He must do at least one good turn to somebody everyday.

“Maybe you never noticed that the part about good turns is printed in italics.  You know what italics mean—­you learn that in the Second Grade.  It means that that special thing is emphasized, see?”

Mr. Ellsworth was smiling a little, but anyway he was listening and so was Mr. Bennett.  Gee, I didn’t see anything to smile at.

Now I have to admit that I got kind of excited and I didn’t know much what I was saying.

Sometimes I had to stop on account of that lump being in my throat.  But anyway, I kept on and I held on tight to my emblem—­the Silver Fox emblem.

“So that’s what I mean,” I said, “and, this morning Westy was on his way to help on the house-boat and he met” (oh, jiminies, I guess I didn’t know how I was talking now, I was so excited) “and he met Skinny McCord’s mother and she told him about Skinny being sick on account of a good turn he did for me—­keeping Jake Holden from going to my house—­and she asked him to go up and stay with him and he didn’t think any more about the house-boat, and I’m glad he didn’t, and I told him that, and I’m his patrol leader yet, anyway.  I tell him that, I do!  And he went home and got his baseball and his catching mitt and it cost a dollar and seventy-five cents, and he took them to Skinny just so as he’d kind of forgot being sick.  Westy saved up to get that mitt and I know all about it.  And he stayed all day with Skinny and the doctor says, he says Skinny has got to die, but anyway Westy stayed all day with him—­that’s what he did.  And I’m glad you fellows are going to elect a new leader if you want him to reprimand Westy, be cause you’d never get me to do it, I can tell you that!”

Oh, crinkums, there wasn’t a sound.  It had to stop because I was gulping and all excited, but I started again, you can bet.

“And there’s only one thing more I’ve got to say,” I told them.  “I got on the trail—­I mean Skinny’s trail.  And it took me to his house in Barrel Alley.  I picked up his trail down at Little Landing and it had the scout’s pathfinder sign printed in the mud.  And I—­I’m—­I’m a scout, I am, I don’t care what you say, and