Particularly they enjoyed a man on stilts with the placard of a restaurant on his back proclaiming the delights of wheatcakes and coffee. This man sat on the roofs of taxicabs and was followed by an admiring throng. Emerson suggested that they sample the wheatcakes and coffee.
Emerging from the restaurant, they strolled down to Herald Square and gazed at the woodland camp settings in the illuminated windows of the mammoth stores. They spoke seductively of spring, these displays. One showed a campfire with wax scouts sitting about; the cheerful blaze consisted of sparkling red paper crumpled upon real logs. Another wax scout was sitting in a canoe, staring with ghastly fixity upon the street. An open lunch basket stood on the painted ground.
“That’s just the way scouts are,” Pee-wee said. “So now wouldn’t you like to be one?”
“They look rather stiff,” said Emerson. He was not without a sense of humor. “You mean that scouts are dummies?”
“What d’you mean, dummies?” roared Pee-wee. “That shows just the way they live in the woods when they go camping. If that scout in the canoe wants to know what time it is, do you know how he can tell?”
“By looking at his watch,” said Emerson.
“Naaaah, by the stars; he can tell by the consolations—stars all in crowds, sort of. Anyway, you’d make a dandy scout, do you know why? Because you like to eat. Do you know how to save yourself from drowning?”
“By not going in the water,” said Emerson.
“Nope,” said Pee-wee. “Scouts, the more they go in the more they don’t get drowned. They have to know how to track animals too, and stalk birds and everything. They have to sneak up on birds when the birds aren’t looking——”
“I wouldn’t call that honorable,” said Emerson.