“Well, if I ever lose my wits I’ll promise to become a scout,” said Emerson, amused in spite of himself.
Little did he know that the sequel of that promise was to prove more terrible than the sequel of the promise which Pee-wee had made.
“Absolutely, positively, cross your heart?” Pee-wee demanded.
It seemed altogether unlikely that the prim, level-headed, cultured little Emerson would ever lapse in the matter of poise and sanity. But Pee-wee had at least that one forlorn hope to cling to, so he clung to it.
CHAPTER XIV
SEEING NEW YORK
The difference between Pee-wee and Emerson Skybrow was illustrated by the contents of their respective pockets.
Pee-wee carried with him as regular equipment a piece of chalk for marking scout signs, the broken cap of a fountain pen used to simulate the call of a sea-gull, a cocoon containing a silkworm (daily expected to emerge in wingful glory but which never did), a scout jack-knife, a compass, a nail for converting his watch into an emergency sun-dial, an agate handle of an umbrella, a golf ball, a receipt for making scout-scrapple (a weird edible) written on birch bark, and a romantic implement which no scout should be without, a hairpin. Some of these things were rather sticky from recent proximity to gum-drops; the compass seemed almost sugar-coated.
Emerson carried in the inside pocket of his jacket a respectable leather wallet with his name stamped in gilt upon it. In this he carried five new one-dollar bills, a ten-trip ticket on the Erie road, a tiny calendar, some engraved cards and a railroad time-table. This latter he now unfolded and found that the next train on the Bridgeboro branch left Jersey City at ten twenty-two. This left time enough for a little sightseeing, and they lingered in the city.
Emerson did things handsomely. He treated Pee-wee to soda in a gorgeous emporium and bought some candy as well. He seemed quite at home in this night life of the metropolis. Pee-wee found him companionable and generous. All the unfavorable things which he had thought about Emerson simmered down to a certain unfortunate habit the boy had of talking well and using words that grown people use. It seemed an insufficient reason for disliking him that he called a “cop” a policeman.
Pee-wee felt a little under his protection as they hiked down Broadway looking in the brilliantly lighted windows and finding free entertainment everywhere—in the electrical displays, the vociferous merchants who sold things (“while they last for a dime, ten cents”) out of the leather valises which they hurriedly closed and departed at the approach of a policeman.