"Do you like sardine sandwiches?" our hero asked at random, for he hardly knew what to use for bait amid such crowding variety. "I was stuck on the flats for over an hour and then the tide took me off. It's coming in now. I'm going to stay on here all night and to-morrow and all next week. So do you want to join? Only you have to be a scout if you want to come on here. There are six other fellers but they're at the party. They said I wouldn't have any fun at the party because I can't dance, but I'm having more fun than any of them. I foiled them. They're all dancing but they're good and hungry. Maybe they look happy but they're not." "Do dey all go round in dem things?" Keekie Joe ventured to inquire. "No, but I'm lucky," said Pee-wee. It seemed to Keekie Joe that Pee-wee was very lucky. "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?"