“Why then do you wear their uniform?”
“Would ye have me take it off and wear the rigimintals I was born in? I’d be feared of the scratches from the bushes, though I should like to be obliging.”
“Are you on your way to the Boy Patrol camp?”
“That’s me distination, as me uncle said whin he looked down at the ground as he was falling from a balloon.”
“You are walking away from instead of toward it. The Boy Patrols are two miles to the rear.”
“I don’t wish to drop down on ’em too quick; ye have heard of sudden joy killing a person and I want to approach ’em slow and grand like, that they may have time to give me a proper reciption.”
Fearing that his jocosity might not be acceptable, Mike added:
“I may as well own up, me friend, that I’ve lost me way, but before going thither will ye insthruct me as to how to make the Boy Scout salute?”
“It is simple; observe; crook your right little finger inward; keep it down flat by pressing your thumb upon it; hold the other three fingers upright, palm outward and bring the hand in front of the forehead; try it.”
With the example before him, Mike had no trouble in making the salute.