Early in the morning they set forth, the gasoline so low in the tank that Townsend, wriggle and jounce as he would, could not arouse an answering splash from the depths below him. “There’s just about enough to take a grease spot out with,” he said cheerily. In the promising sunshine of Pee-wee’s presence he seemed to have regained his wonted spirit. “You leave them to me,” Pee-wee said; “you let me do the talking, see?” Townsend agreed to this since there was no way of preventing it. “Right after breakfast they always come out on the porch and sew and do things like that; some of them take constitutions but most of them sew. That’s the time to catch them.” “Constitutionals, Kid.” “What’s the difference?” At the tactical hour of 9:30 A. M. a dilapidated, topless flivver might have been seen and heard moving up the winding private road to Brookside Villa. It made no attempt to steal upon the summer boarders unaware, but rattled and squeaked, and proclaimed its coming to the world. Townsend, hatless as usual and wearing his gray flannel shirt, sat upright at the wheel with a humorous complacency which added a piquant touch to his hobo vehicle. Pee-wee was resplendent in his full scout regalia, merit badges and all. Under the spell of his new enterprise, he had subjected his kit to another upheaval in order to procure his best scout suit. Also he had taken up one of the floor boards of the poor Ford and with a piece of black chalk used for making scout signs, had printed on it in glaring letters: Knives and things sharpened by machinery. He had, on second thought (or, to be more exact, on fourth thought) decided, for sufficient reasons, to omit the word scissors and include it under the general heading of _things_. This sign he hung like a banner on his scout staff and bore aloft like some doughty crusader of old as he sat beside Townsend in the flivver. But the people sitting on the lawn and porches of the big old-fashioned house knew not what was going on in the heart of our redoubtable young hero as they saw the festive caravan approach and, giving a spasmodic medley of squeaks and rattles, stop before the main porch. “Suppose we haven’t got gas enough to grind one scissors,” Pee-wee whispered. “It will only take four or five revolutions of the wheel to do that,” said Townsend. “Half a pint of gas ought to earn us the price of four or five gallons.” “Leave them to me,” said Pee-wee darkly. CHAPTER XXVI BUSINESS IS PLEASURE With an air of profound seriousness and businesslike briskness, Townsend jacked up the rear of the flivver, removed the tire and rim, and proceeded to tack strips of emery cloth continuously around the wooden edge of the wheel. Two or three curious children watched him but most of the boarders were too preoccupied watching and listening to Pee-wee to note these preparations.