The meeting was held as usual in the scout master’s study, a room of comfortable chairs, book-lined walls, and interesting souvenirs and relics of many sorts. There were swords and daggers from the East, old flint-locks, Indian pottery, old bronzes and a multitude of other curious things which the boys were never tired of looking over. In cold weather a fire always glimmered on the broad hearth, and to-day, though this was empty, they had from force of habit gathered around it.
“One of the things I’ve noticed about a good many troops,” said Mr. Wendell, leaning back in his chair, “is a tendency to be just a little clannish. It’s perfectly natural, of course. A fellow wants his own particular friends in the troop and in proposing a member he naturally picks a boy he knows, who’s in his class, or on his team or lives next door. That’s human nature, but the result is narrowing and to my mind it defeats one of the great fundamental objects of Scouting—democracy. Take our own troop, for instance. We’ve got a corking bunch of fellows who work well and play well together. But there’s a whole great class in Wharton that we haven’t even touched.”
He paused and the boys glanced doubtfully at one another. Cavanaugh’s forehead was crinkled with a little frown.
“You mean— You think we ought to take in fellows from the—mine families?” he asked.
Mr. Wendell smiled.
“Why not?”
“But they’re mostly Da—er—Italians and Poles and all that,” protested Cavvy.
The scoutmaster’s smile deepened.
“Well, what of it?”
Cavanaugh flushed faintly.