“I’ve got the best part of the party here,” said Pee-wee, holding onto a tree alongshore to keep the island from drifting.  “You better hurry up because I can’t hold it here; I can only hold it here about—­about—­seven seconds.  Only you can’t come on unless you join because we need one more feller.  So will you join?  If you will you can have all the ice cream you want, because I got a right to all these things.  And there’s cake goes with it too, and everything.  It includes chicken salad and sandwiches and everything.  So will you join?  I’m the boss of all these things, I am, you can ask Minerva Skybrow.  I’m the boss of the olives and—­and—­everything.”

“Did yer swipe ’em?” Keekie Joe asked, looking furtively around as if he thought that Pee-wee might be shadowed while in possession of such boundless wealth.

“I got them on account of being lucky,” Pee-wee said.  “I pulled a stick out of the ground and it was a dandy mistake so that shows you’d better stick to me, because I make lots of dandy mistakes.  I make them every day; sometimes I make two in one day and I’ve got nine ideas for next week and all these eats besides.  You needn’t be afraid to get on,” he added, “because it’ll drift up the river now and it won’t go past Bridgeboro on account of Waring’s reef.  There’s where I want it to stick because if it sticks there it’ll stay there, you can bet.  Come on, don’t you be scared.”

Then, with sudden inspiration, he added, “This is a peachy place to lay keekie for cops, because you can see all around you away, way off.  And when all this food is gone there’ll be apples getting ripe on this tree and you won’t have to speak for cores either, because you can have whole apples, all you want of them.  That’s what scouts do, they eat and they stay out all night and they’re wild, kind of.  And they don’t care what happens, and anyway the ice cream is melting all the time, so will you join?”

Keekie Joe, still hesitating in profound astonishment, and a little fearful of this strange apparition with its presiding genius saw that if he were going to act he must act quickly for though Pee-wee was king of the island he seemed not able to govern its capricious fancy.  Clutch the tree as he would, the gap between scout and hoodlum persistently widened, and the island seemed bent on hurrying upon its wanton career.

Keekie Joe, not altogether easy in his mind, still found it impossible to resist these enumerated benefits of scouting.  Being wild and staying out all night and eating and eating and eating forever and forever under a profusion of blossoms which gave new promise, was too much for the sentinel of Barrel Alley to ignore.

So he ran away to sea as so many other boys had done before him and sailed out upon the briny deep in the good barque Merry-go-round.  And he ate such a supper that night as he had never eaten in his life before.  Pee-wee had already eaten his fill but he wished to be companionable and make his guest feel at home so he ate another supper with his new friend in accordance with the requirements of good manners.