“Well, I’ll take it out of them for this skinned ankle sooner or later,” declared Tubby, hopping about and nursing the injured member.
“Same here,” came from one or two of the Scouts angrily. “They won’t get away with anything like that.”
“Humph! I’ve just recollected,” said Tubby suddenly. “There’s some rule or other that says Scouts mustn’t fight.”
Rob was instantly appealed to by half a dozen anxious voices owned by the victims of the soapy stairs.
“Well,” he said, “of course no Scout is supposed to engage in fisticuffs except in actual self-defense; but—well I guess there’s a limit.”
“And it’s been reached,” muttered Tubby vindictively.
“Fall in!” cried Rob.
“Humph! I just fell down,” grunted Tubby.
And then, without more discussion of the mean trick that had been played them, the Scouts marched off. After that glorious evening they all felt that they could well afford to ignore such contemptible pranks as those of Max Ramsay and his crowd.
As for Rob and Merritt, proud as they felt of the honor that had been paid them that night, they somehow could not help valuing even more highly the quiet thanks that had come to them from full hearts before the public demonstration had been thought of. It is a Scout’s duty to do his work without hope of reward, save that which comes from a sense of work well done, which, after all, is the best reward and the most enduring that any boy, or man, either, for that matter, can have.