“Because all of a sudden it changes its course, did you know that? And you wake up some fine morning and it’s not near your house any more. Maybe it’s a mile off.”
“Isn’t that extraordinary!”
“That’s nothing,” said Pee-wee. “Islands change too; once North America wasn’t here, but anyway I’m glad it’s here now because, gee whiz, I have a lot of fun on it, but anyway if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t all be sitting here watching the parade go by, that’s one sure thing.”
“We ought to give you a vote of thanks,” some one observed.
“It’s what you kind of call a good turn that happens by accident,” Pee-wee said. “You know scouts have to do good turns, don’t you? They have to do one every day. Anyway, gee whiz, I’m glad that truck broke down. If a circus parade turns, that’s a good turn, isn’t it—for the people that live on the street where it turns?”
“Oh, absolutely, positively,” laughed an amused lady.
“There goes a leopard,” Pee-wee said. “I know a way you can catch a leopard with fly-paper, only you got to have a lot of it. Leopards have five toes, do you know that? I can make a call like a leopard, want to hear me? Scouts have to know how to imitate animals so as to fool ’em.”
“Can you imitate a cataclysm—a vocal cataclysm?” asked a young woman.
“Is it an animal?”
“No, it’s something like a volcanic eruption combined with an earthquake.”