“Intensive,” said Townsend. “So wouldn’t that be a good idea?” “It would be a good idea, Kid, only I haven’t got any disguise. And we haven’t got any gasoline either, if anybody should ask you. I doubt if we can make the village I just came from; we’re up against it. It beats anything how it holds out. I’d start out to-night again only I’m afraid we’d get stuck in the road and I don’t want to get stuck in the road at night. There’s a gas station in a barn about a mile up the road; there’s a big boarding-house there, but I hate like the dickens to—” “Scouts can’t ask favors,” Pee-wee shouted. They’re supposed to have resources and—” “Well, my resources are just a dime at present,” said Townsend. “Listen,” shouted Pee-wee, “I’ve got an inspiration. It’s a dandy idea. All we need is ten cents and a big boarding-house!” “Do you make gasoline by mixing those together?” Townsend asked. “Take one large boarding-house, stir thoroughly, and add ten—” “_You’re crazy_—listen! There are lots of women at boarding-houses, aren’t there? They’ve all got scissors and things to be sharpened. Last year when I was at Snailsdale Manor Farm a man came around sharpening knives and scissors and things, ten cents each. He made a lot of money. Listen, Townsend, you stop laughing and listen—wait till I finish eating this rice cake and I’ll tell you—you—you—maybe even we don’t need ten cents. Have you got any emery cloth—for spark-plugs and things?” “I guess I could scare up a couple of sheets.” “Then all we have to do—_listen_—all we have to do is—have you got rims that come off? Sure you have. All we have to do is jack up the back wheels and take the tire and the rim off one of them and tack emery cloth all the way round; it’ll last to sharpen about twenty pairs of scissors and things. Gee whiz, it’s better to have resources than go asking favors, isn’t it? We’ll make a great hit, _you see_! You be the one to sharpen the things and I’ll be the one to shout, hey?” The proposal to turn one of the rear wheels of his flivver into a grindstone at first struck Townsend as preposterous but on reflecting he saw no reason why this could not be done. Emery cloth, tacked on the edge of a wheel would not last long, but it would last a little while, and if business was good they could probably get some more emery cloth at the village where the big boarding-house was. The element of comedy which their outlandish device would have would in itself be something of a drawing card. The world likes to see people (especially boys) original and industrious. It always pays its tribute to ingenuity. “It’ll be a kind of a show, too,” Pee-wee said. And, indeed, so it proved. Pee-wee knew his public. He had enlivened the tedium of summer boarding-houses before, but this proved his master stroke. It was “just what they wanted,” to quote the advertisements.