Westy said, “We’ll have signs up all around saying _A SCOUT IS HUNGRY_, and things like that. We’ll have some poetry on big planks——” “And when Tony sees all that,” Connie Bennett piped up, “and finds that we won’t go over and buy any eats from him, why, then he’ll move his wagon over to the lot and we’ll have a chance to move the car. It’s a bully idea if Pee-wee doesn’t weaken and spoil it all.” “What are you talking about?” Pee-wee yelled. “I can go without anything to eat for—for an hour, if I have to!” So we decided that we’d force Tony to move his lunch wagon by the force of our appetites. Maybe you’ve seen exhibitions of things that scouts can do by the power of deduction and all that, and how they can do things by united strength, and everybody admits they can make a lot of noise when they sing together. But I bet you never saw what they can do by concerted appetite—that means all being hungry at the same time. You can move a house that way. Anyway, you can move a lunch wagon. CHAPTER VII—THE INVITATION Now this is the way we planned it out. We decided that if we could get the way cleared as far as the Sneezenbunker land it would be easy from there, because the car would roll down the grade and maybe all the way across Cat-tail Marsh. Then we’d have to think of some scheme to get it to the river. “We won’t cross our bridges till we come to them,” Westy said. “We’re not going to take it across the river,” the kid shouted. “Crossing bridges is an expression,” I told him. “It’s the same as premises, only different.” So the next thing we had to think of was how to get the car past Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop, because repair shops can’t be moved like lunch wagons. And strategy doesn’t go with men who keep garages. So the next thing we did was to go and ask Mr. Slausen if he’d be willing to let us take down a few boards from his ramshackle old building just above where the tracks went through if we promised to put them up again. “Maybe my father’s going to get a flivver,” Pee-wee piped up, “and maybe if I run it I’ll have a smash-up, and I’ll get you to fix it.” But that didn’t go with Mr. Slausen. He said, very gruff like, “You kids better go home and study your lessons and not be trying to move railroad cars.” I said, “Scouts always keep their word, Mr. Slausen, and if we say we’ll put the boards back up again, we will.” He said, “Well, I guess we won’t take down any boards, so you better run along.” And then he started to talk to a man and didn’t pay any more attention to us. Just as we were going out Connie Bennett said, “Well, we’ll have to think of another way, that’s all. It’s got to be did somehow.” “Sure,” I said; “scouts can always think of a way.” Mr. Slausen must have heard us, for he turned around and shouted after us, very cross, “I want you youngsters to keep away from here. Understand?” Westy said, “Yes, sir.”