Pretty soon over came the girls and one of them wanted to know what we were all shouting about. I know that girl; she’s Professor Skybrow’s daughter and she wears big spectacles. She’s too smart to live, that girl is. She was in my class last term and she took all the merits in sight. She’d have taken the whole school if it hadn’t been fastened down. Pee-wee went up to her and tried to speak. He was trying to hold his cup of coffee and sandwich and his pie in two hands, and there was custard all over his face. He looked as if he’d been through a war. “We’ve—we’ve won the war,” he was trying to say. “Roy Blakeley planned the whole thing—he——” “I’m the modern Napoleon,” I said. “I’ve got General Pershing tearing his hair.” She said, “Did you ever study the battle of Waterloo?” I said, “This is the battle of coffeeloo. We like that better than water. Will you have a piece of pie?” She just stared at me and said, “And you consider yourself a strategist!” “He’s—he’s the great mil—mil——” Pee-wee began, trying to talk and eat a piece of pie at the same time. “He’s the greatest military genius of the age.” She just looked through those big glasses, very smart and superior like, and she said, “If _I_ were a general I wouldn’t be so stupid as to forget all about my reinforcements.” “W-a-a—what d’ y’ mean—reinforcements?” Pee-wee blurted out, while the coffee and custard were trickling down off his chin. “Wha’ d’ y’ mean?” She just said, “When is that train going to arrive that you are waiting for?” “At exactly four-sixty—five o’clock,” I told her. She said, “Well, then, Mr. Smarty, you timed your battle wrong. You made a blunder——” “The pleasure is mine,” I said. “And in order to hold this wagon here and keep the track clear till your friend Mr. Jenson comes, you have got to keep on eating for exactly two hours and forty minutes. If you can hold the fort that long you can move your car. _But you’ll have to keep eating all the time._” There was a dead silence. “We—can—d-d-d-wit,” Pee-wee managed to blurt out, all the while spilling his coffee and munching his pie. “Scoutscam——” Good night! I just stood there, and that girl kept looking right at me through those big glasses. She got ninety-nine in arithmetic, that girl did, and she wrote a poem that was in the newspaper, too. Then she said, “You see, General Napoleon, you didn’t figure your campaign properly. If you had gotten the Girl Scouts to help you, perhaps you wouldn’t have found yourselves in this ghastly predicament.” Those are just the words she used—_ghastly predicament_. CHAPTER X—MINERVA SKYBROW TAKES COMMAND “Hurrah for Joan of Arc!” one scout began shouting. “What do we care?” Pee-wee managed to blurt out. “We care a good deal,” Westy said. “Our glorious leader is all right on the field of battle, but when it comes to planning a strategical move——”