"Oh, and didn't you _kill_ yourself?" one of the girls wanted to know. "Sure he did," Westy said; "but he's all right now." "It's fine being a boy," Pee-wee said; "gee, I feel sorry for girls." "Oh, and you can sew, too?" one of them asked him. "And cook?" "Cook!" I said. "He used to be the chef in the Waldorf Castoria." "Scouts have to know how to do everything," Pee-wee told her; "because suppose a scout is alone in the woods; he has to cook his dinner, doesn't he? He has to know how to do everything for himself, see? That's why I'll sew this jacket myself. That's what you call resourcefulness. A scout has to be full of that, see?" "Oh, I think it's just _wonderful_!" the girl said. "That's nothing," Pee-wee told her; "you can even cook moss and eat it if you're lost and hungry. Once I went two days without food." "You mean two hours," Connie said. "Anyway, it was _two_ something or other," Pee-wee shouted. "Most likely it was two minutes," I told the girl. "And you came all the way out here _alone_? Oh, isn't that perfectly _adorable_! And you're going to give a show to earn money----" "So we won't perish," Pee-wee said. "Which?" Westy asked him. "Perish," he said; "don't you know what perish means?" "And will the pictures show you doing all those things?" one of the girls wanted to know. "Sure," Pee-wee said; "maybe you'll get some good ideas from them, only you mustn't scream when you see one of the fellows fall out of a tree into the water, because that's nothing. That's one thing scouts don't do--scream." But believe me, that was one thing scouts did do the very next day. I did, anyway; I screamed till I had a headache. CHAPTER XI WE MEET THE CHEERFUL IDIOT They said they would surely canoe across that night and take in the show and so we told them we'd see them later. Westy gave Pee-wee one of his sign placards and we marched up and down Main Street for about an hour, till we got hungry. Then we decided that as long as everybody in Skiddyunk knew about our show, we'd go back to Ridgeboro and catch some fish. Mr. Tarkin told us that as long as everybody had laughed so much and had seemed to take so much interest, he guessed our show was a safe investment and that if we needed a couple of dollars or so to carry us through, he'd let us have it. But we didn't take it, because scouts like to rely on themselves, and we knew there were lots of fish in that lake. When we got back to Ridgeboro, the man that owned the store came and gave us a telegram. He said a boy on horseback had brought it from the office in Skiddyunk. This is what it said: "Just learned of unfortunate error of freight conductor. Don't be afraid or worried. Have wired money to Skiddyunk. You can get eastern train there at three. Parents informed. Keep cool. "JOHN TEMPLE." "Just our luck," Westy said; "we've got to go home." "What!" Pee-wee shouted.