“He’s a kind of an old grouch,” Pee-wee said.

“It’s good you happened to think about how he used that word desert,” Doc said.

Then Connie said he wouldn’t want to be his son, and Artie said he wouldn’t want to be around the house with him on a rainy Sunday, and I let them go on knocking him, until they got good and tired and then I said, “Do you know what he wants to do?”

“I bet he wants us to go and be witnesses against Uncle Jimmy,” Pee-wee said; “he’ll never get me to be a witness, you can bet.”

“Wrong the first time, as usual,” I said; “he wants to tow the house-boat up as far as Poughkeepsie for us next week.”

Well, you should have seen those fellows.

“What did you tell him?” Pee-wee yelled.

“I told him that I was sorry, but that scouts couldn’t accept anything for a service—­not even favors.”

“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted; “did you tell him that?”

“Sure I did,” I said, very sober, “and he got so mad he’s going to have old Uncle Jimmy sent to jail—­just because I told him we couldn’t let him tow us to Poughkeepsie.”

“You make me tired!” Pee-wee screamed, “do you mean to say that if a fellow does a good turn to another—­an old man—­and it turns out to be a good turn on somebody else, and he says—­the other one that has a boat—­that he’ll make a lot of trouble for the other one we did a service for—­do you mean to tell me that the other one has a right to say he’ll make trouble for him, and if he does we haven’t got a right to let him do a good turn to us, so that the other one we did a good turn for can get under a bridge—­it’s a good turn to let him do us a good turn, isn’t it?  Let’s hear you deny that?”

“You’re talking in chunks,” Doc said; “pick up the words you spilled and straighten ’em out.”

“Hold him or he’ll fall off the bridge,” Artie said.

“Do you mean to tell me that we haven’t got to let him pay us back so as to save Uncle Jimmy?” Pee-wee fairly screeched.

Oh, boy, you should have seen him.

“There is yet time,” I said, just like an actor, sort of.  I said, “There is yet time to fool him—­I mean foil him.  We have till Friday to accept his offer.”

“Who’s got a pencil?” Pee-wee shouted.

Good night!  You should have seen that kid.

CHAPTER XXXIII

SO LONG-SEE YOU LATER

So that’s about all I can tell you now, but pretty soon I’ll tell you about our cruise up the Hudson and all about the fun we had on the house-boat and on Captain Savage’s tug.  Oh, boy, he turned out to be one fine man.  And I’m going to tell you all about Skinny too, and about the fix we got into about that tramp that slept in the house-boat.  You remember that fellow, don’t you.  Some scare we had, believe me.

And you’ll hear about Temple Camp and Jeb Rushmore, and you’ll get to know us fellows a lot better.  Gee, I hope you’ll like us.  Mr. Ellsworth says I’m a pretty good author, only I took such a long run there wasn’t any space left to jump in.  I should worry.  Some authors don’t run at all, they only walk.  Believe me, you have to drag some of them with a rope.