Then he said, “’Tain’t so much wrong, as ’tis a conflict of rules, as the feller says. Yer see, the trouble is tug-boat captains are a pretty pesky, ugly lot, as yer can see from me, and when it comes ter services, it’s give or take. Now I was thinkin’, that if you youngsters don’t let me tow you up as far as Poughkeepsie next week, I’ll just have to write and notify the authorities about Uncle Jimmy and make a complaint. I kinder don’t like to do it by reason of him being an old veteran, but it’s up to you youngsters. Either scratch out that rule of yours, or else see Uncle Jimmy lose his job. Take your choice, it’s all the same to me.” G-o-o-d night! Jiminy, I didn’t know what to say to him. I guess I just stood there staring and he looked straight ahead out of the window and smoked his pipe, as if he didn’t care either way. Pretty soon he said, “I’m going up to Poughkeepsie next Saturday with a barge, and I’ll give you youngsters till Friday to decide. You can send me a line to the barge office or the Pilots’ Association, or else you can leave me and old Uncle Jimmy fight it out between our two selves and Uncle Sam.” The fellows opened the bridge for _General Grant_ to go through and Captain Savage let me out on one of the cross-beams, without even stopping. He didn’t even look at the fellows as the tug went through, only looked straight ahead of him and puffed away on his pipe, as if he didn’t even know that there were such things as scouts. We just stood there watching the tug churning up the water, as she went faster and faster until she was gone around the bend. “He’s a kind of an old grouch,” Pee-wee said. “It’s good you happened to think about how he used that word _desert_,” Doc said. Then Connie said he wouldn’t want to be his son and Artie said he wouldn’t want to be around the house with him on a rainy Sunday, and I let them go on knocking him, until they got good and tired and then I said, “Do you know what he wants to do?” “I bet he wants us to go and be witnesses against Uncle Jimmy,” Pee-wee said; “he’ll never get me to be a witness, you can bet.” “Wrong the first time, as usual,” I said; “he wants to tow the house-boat up as far as Poughkeepsie for us next week.” Well, you should have seen those fellows. “What did you tell him?” Pee-wee yelled. “I told him that I was sorry, but that scouts couldn’t accept anything for a service—not even favors.” “You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted; “did you tell him that?” “Sure I did,” I said, very sober, “and he got so mad he’s going to have old Uncle Jimmy sent to jail—just because I told him we couldn’t let him tow us to Poughkeepsie.”