So Willie Wide-awake balanced a pine cone like that and counted ten and then he said, “I wish we’d get a hundred dollars and I wish Mr. Jennis would hurry up and come back.”
And then I batted the pine cone away with a birch stick, so as to make the wish come true. You’ve got to be sure the stick is made of birch.
Anyway, the day passed soon enough, even if we didn’t have much to do, and after supper, Harry said very innocent sort of, “Roy, suppose you and Dorry hike into Kingston with me and carry home some stuff. The rest of you start a fire.”
Little Willie Wide-awake piped up, “I’ll go with you.” But Harry just ruffled up his hair, the same as he was always doing with me and said, “You just sit here and watch the fire. See what you can find in the fire. The other night we were seeing all sorts of things in the fire—pictures and things. You can find all kinds of pictures in fires, can’t you, Brent?”
So then Harry gave the little fellow a kind of a push so he went sprawling right down all over the other fellows. Gee, I bet those kids liked him. I don’t know, but he had a way about him that everybody liked. After we started I told him he ought to be a scoutmaster, and he said he would only he had a date in Labrador. He said he had a date to go hunting seals. Another time he told us he had a date to kill a man in Australia. He had a lot of dates.
On the way to Kingston he said to us, “Did you give that newspaper article back to Gaylong?” And I told him, “Yes.”
“All right,” he said; “we don’t want that in our possession. We have nothing to do with this business; see?”
Then Harry said, “Now I don’t want you kids to be disappointed if this wild man of Borneo turns out not to be wandering Horace at all; see?”
He said, “Well, Columbus was mistaken when he thought he’d reached India, and he was smarter than you.”
“Gee whiz,” I said, “I don’t deny he was smarter than I am. But anyway, I know we’re not mistaken.”
“All right,” he said; “but I want you to let me do the talking. All I know about this savage beast is the twinkle in his eye. Twinkles are good things; you can usually bank on a twinkle. But you kids leave it to me; understand?”
I said, “It’ll be so still you’ll be able to hear the silence.”