“With that s-scantling we captured. It’s come in handy, ’ain’t it? Got water with it. Now we’ll stop the fort with it.”
“How?”
“Easy. When they s-start up—if they ever do—we’ll just jam one end of our two-by-four against their fort and the other end of it against a step. They’ll have to shove the whole citadel over into the l-l-lake to move. It’ll be just like p-pushin’ against a stone wall.”
“Then what?” says I.
“Then,” says he, “they’ll have to come out and fight. We’ve got better than an even chance there.”
“Where’s the dog?” says I, thinking of him all of a sudden.
Mark shrugged his shoulders. “D-d-down-stairs,” says he. “I left him on p-purpose. If we had him we might use him, and it sort of goes against the grain to be f-fightin’ men with a dog.”
“I’d fight ’em with a crocodile if I had one,” says I, and let it go at that.
“They ought to be projectin’ around pretty soon,” says Binney. “If they leave us alone much longer we’ll get all out of the habit of squabblin’ with ’em.”
“Don’t worry,” says Mark. “We won’t have t-t-time to form any habits. We ain’t apt to have time to spell habit unless we do it two letters at a time.”