“I think this island is warranted not to shrink,” said Townsend.

“Warranted nothing,” said Billy; “look how muddy the water is all around it.  It’ll be about as big as a fifty cent piece by midnight.  The river is eating it all away.”

“Speaking of eating,” said Townsend, “here comes the discoverer.”

The discoverer and his companion were indeed approaching and apparently they had sacked the town of Bridgeboro.  Their gallant barque labored under a veritable mountain of miscellaneous paraphernalia and out of the pile projected a long bar with a device on the end of it which glinted red and green in the sunshine.

“It looks like a weather-vane,” said Billy.

“There’s something printed on it,” said Roly.

“It says STOP,” said the boy they called Nuts.

“It says GO” said the boy they called Brownie.

“I think,” said Townsend, scrutinizing the approaching transport in his funny way, “I think, I think, it’s a traffic sign.  You don’t see any automobiles in the canoe, do you?”

“There’s something sticking out on the left side,” said Billy; “I think it’s a Ford.  I hope the island isn’t going to be overrun by motorists.”

“It’s not a Ford, it’s a dishpan,” said Brownie.

“They’re the same thing,” said Townsend.  “What is that on the duffel bag—­a license plate?”

Suddenly the voice of the discoverer floated across the expanse of sun-flickered water.  “We’re going to have hunter’s stew for supper and I’m going to make it and my mother says I can stay all through Easter vacation and I got a lot of things out of our attic.  Do you like bananas?  I’ve got a whole bunch and I’ve got a lot of new ideas—­dandy ones!  I know how to fry them!  I know how to slice them and fry them!”

“I’d like to try some fried ideas,” said Townsend.  “I don’t think I ever ate them sliced before.”

It may be said that Pee-wee’s ideas, whether fried or baked or boiled or roasted, were usually underdone and required to be put back into the oven.

Be that as it may, he soon proceeded to unload these, as well as the interesting junk which he had gathered, the most surprising object of which was the dilapidated revolving traffic sign lately discarded by the Bridgeboro police department in favor of a lighthouse or silent cop, so called.

This acquisition was the pride of Pee-wee’s life; its heavy metal stand had long since gone the way of all junk and it could not stand unsupported.  As Pee-wee plunged it heroically in the earth and stood holding it with one hand he looked not unlike Columbus planting the flaunting emblem of Ferdinand and Isabella on the shore of San Salvador, except that this tableau of the well known historical episode was somewhat marred by the fact of his holding a half eaten banana in his other hand.  But his new friends stared with all the amazement shown by the natives upon the landing of that other great discoverer.  Only a specific inventory can do justice to the provisions and furniture which Pee-wee brought.