"No!" said Ivan.
"Well," said Warren, "it queered me so I thought I wouldn't say anything about it. After you threw the food off the table, I looked down and presently something slipped out of the shadow. It was the biggest rat you ever saw. Much bigger than any of those. He walked around bold as anything, and I began to think what a big fellow like that could do if a fellow got down and out. Well, it made me cold. Then he went off, and I think he told a lot of the others that there was a lot of good eats on the floor, and half a dozen of them came along, and went after that meat and stuff. And when they ate it, one by one they just went staggering around for a little as though they didn't know what ailed them, and then they fell down, and I never hope to see such agony. It was back of you, Ivan, and I thought there was no use telling you. But it is all over now, for the rats and for us too; and we can be glad you fellows found us. As soon as we can walk," he ended, "we must take this thing to headquarters. We know where to look for the girls, and they must help."
The largest Scout laughed.
"You don't know what you are talking about," he said. "You can't get help from anyone. Our people, the people of Warsaw, are so scattered, that it is the same as though they did not exist. As for the others, the enemy, they laugh. I know of one lady who lost a child—But there is no use to talk. Whatever is done—we will have to do ourselves."
"We will go down ourselves, now we know where to look, and we will take the children. We are strong, if it comes to a fight; we can still get them away. We ourselves will rescue the children." He laughed and helped Warren to his feet. "We are Scouts," he said.
"It is a good thing we are," said another boy, busy rubbing Ivan who lay with set teeth, stifling the pain of returning circulation in his tortured ankles.
"You did a wonderful thing, Warren," he continued, addressing the boy he named, "when you started the Boy Scout movement over here. Well I remember the day I told my people about it. They were amused. They called it one of the crazy plans of the Americans. They were afraid to have me join. They were afraid that I would get into trouble with the government. Everything is so strictly watched. But they were so glad to have me have a good chance to learn the American language, that they would not quite forbid me. I thought I never would learn. Sometimes I thought I knew it well; and there would appear in your speech some strange words that you could not seem to translate to us, and you called it all with one word, 'Slang!' You said you could not get along without it. And it was and is the most difficult part of all the noble language. Yet now that I can read your native language, I never seem able to find this slang you talk in the books or magazines. I have kept a careful list of all I have heard you say, and I am teaching it to my mother and to my sister who was to have been presented at Court, had not this war come up. It would be fine for them to be able to talk this slang to your ambassador." He stopped speaking Polish, and broke into lame and halting English. "Do you get me, Lissee!" he asked.
Warren groaned.
"For the love of Mike!" he said. "No, I don't mean that! For Pete's sake—" He groaned again. "I don't know what I mean," he said, "but I do get you. Mikelovo and you don't want to teach your precious family any more gems." He hastily sought an excuse. "You see only men and boys talk it as a general thing. Better teach the women stuff out of the books."
"All right," said the earnest student of the American language, "but in all other things the Boy Scouts are all right for my family."