"Didn't I say we'd have to get up early in the morning if we hoped to keep from taking their dust? No matter what else you can say about them, Ted and his crowd are alive, and wide-awake fellows all the time," returned Paul.
"Well, the minister was some surprised when I told him all about it. He said he was delighted, and I guess he meant it too. The more patrols the better for the community, he said. And he seemed to know all about the meaning of the thing, for he showed me several books along the subject, that he promised to lend us."
"Bully for him!" cried Jack, with perhaps more energy than reverence; but had the genial old man heard the words he would have felt highly complimented, knowing that whoever succeeds in getting the approval of live, wide-awake boys must consider himself fortunate indeed.
"There's Nuthin's house," remarked Bobolink, just then.
"And Tom Bates going in, with the Carberry Twins. I hope we can enroll a dozen good fellows for a start. The rest will flock over after a bit, when they get to know what fine times we expect to have," remarked Paul.
They found that there were just a dozen present, counting A. Cypher, who as host was much in evidence. Besides Tom Bates, the new boys were Philip Towns, Jud Elderkin, Joe Clausin and Andy Flinn; the latter of Irish parentage, but well liked, even though his widowed mother had to take in washing to provide food for the numerous mouths dependent on her.
Andy was a particularly bright boy, and many declared that he had a future before him, if only he kept away from the one curse of his father's life, rum. But as he hated the very word drink, there seemed to be little danger that he would be apt to follow in the footsteps of the brilliant man who had fallen so early in life, and left a family nearly destitute.
"Meeting please come to order," called Paul, after he had been pushed into a chair to serve as temporary chairman.
Soon the boys began to go into the details of the projected troop, its meaning, what good it might be expected to accomplish, and everything connected with the Boy Scout organization.
Paul read page after page from the book he had brought, while the others, including the parents of A. Cypher, listened, and applauded at times, as some particularly fine point happened to strike them.