“Sleep?”
“Yop.”
“How do you know you like to? How do you like to do a thing when you don’t know you’re doing it? You can’t enjoy being asleep because you’re asleep when you’re asleep. In order to enjoy being asleep you have to be awake, and then you’re not asleep.” He tousled Pee-wee’s curly hair by way of capping the argument. “So there you are, it can’t be did.”
“Do you call that logic?” Pee-wee roared. “Don’t you suppose I enjoy doing lots of things when I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Townsend laughed.
“Su—u—ure I do,” Pee-wee said, conclusively. “You can’t prove anything by my not knowing what I’m doing because, gee whiz, then you’d have to say I never have any fun, and nobody can say that. I didn’t know what I was doing when I started the relay race, did I? Let’s hear you answer that.”
“I can’t answer that,” said Townsend; “the relay race is your business. But I’m mighty sorry you’re not going to be in the patrol cabin with us, Kid; you see, the fellows in our patrol are new at Temple Camp.”
“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll see you a lot. Gee whiz, when I’m at Temple Camp I’m all over. That’s why they call me a scout at large, only that doesn’t mean that I’m large.”
“No, I understand,” said Townsend; “but you’re a pretty big scout at that.”
The intention of turning in for the night seemed to have passed for the time being and Townsend idly threw some more sticks on the fire and sat gazing into it, his hands clasped about his knees. He looked ruminatively across the mounting blaze at the small scout who sat opposite him, and as he looked, he smiled amusedly, yet kindly.