So long, I’ve got to go to scout meeting now. When I get home I’m going to start chapter seven. And when you start reading it you want to look out not to get too near the edge, because there’s all water in that chapter. It’s kind of like a lake surrounded by a chapter—you’ll see. CHAPTER VII THE FALL OF SCOUT HARRIS Now this is the way we started. We went through Cabin Lane (that’s part of Temple Camp) and passed Commissary Shack and turned into the first path to the left and that’s West Trail, and it goes around the lake through the woods. Pee-wee said, “Now it shows how crazy you all are because this trail will bring us right back to where we started, and if we start again we’ll only do the same thing over again, and we might just as well try to get somewhere on a merry-go-round.” “That’s a very good idea,” I told him; “a merry-go-round hike, I never thought of that.” “What’s the use just going around and around the lake all the time?” he shouted. “Do you call that a hike?” “When we get back we can say we’ve been around a lot,” Brent said. “And what are we going to do when we get back?” the kid yelled. “Oh, we’re just going to keep on going till we find a path to the left,” Warde said. “If there isn’t a path to the left the first time there won’t be one the second time, will there?” our young hero screamed. “If you don’t succeed at first try, try again,” Hervey said. He looked awful funny marching ahead through the woods with the rest of us after him. He looked very serious like, just as if we were really going somewhere. Brent followed along right after him, very sober, with his spectacles half-way down his nose, the way he always wears them. He’s long and lanky and always very sober, that fellow is. I mean he acts sober. He said: “This is just as good as a trip around the world only it’s shorter. When you start around the world you don’t get anywhere; you just come back to the place where you started. That’s because the world is round. If a thing’s round and you start around it you can’t have any destination. That’s logic.” “Absolutely, positively,” Warde said. “The equator is all right but it doesn’t get you anywhere. This is a round trip, we’re encircling the lake.” “How many times are we going to encircle it?” the kid fairly screeched. “You call that logic? Do you think I’m going to keep hiking round and round and round and round the lake all day with nothing to eat? And anyway if there was a path to the left it would run into the lake only there isn’t any.” “Well, probably it doesn’t run into the lake then,” Brent said. “What are you worrying about? We can’t get lost,” Warde said to him. “How is it going to end, that’s what _I_ want to know?” the kid shouted. “It isn’t going to end,” I said; “it’s perpetual motion.”