“Constitutionals, Kid.”
“What’s the difference?”
At the tactical hour of 9:30 A. M. a dilapidated, topless flivver might have been seen and heard moving up the winding private road to Brookside Villa. It made no attempt to steal upon the summer boarders unaware, but rattled and squeaked, and proclaimed its coming to the world.
Townsend, hatless as usual and wearing his gray flannel shirt, sat upright at the wheel with a humorous complacency which added a piquant touch to his hobo vehicle. Pee-wee was resplendent in his full scout regalia, merit badges and all.
Under the spell of his new enterprise, he had subjected his kit to another upheaval in order to procure his best scout suit. Also he had taken up one of the floor boards of the poor Ford and with a piece of black chalk used for making scout signs, had printed on it in glaring letters:
He had, on second thought (or, to be more exact, on fourth thought) decided, for sufficient reasons, to omit the word scissors and include it under the general heading of things. This sign he hung like a banner on his scout staff and bore aloft like some doughty crusader of old as he sat beside Townsend in the flivver.
But the people sitting on the lawn and porches of the big old-fashioned house knew not what was going on in the heart of our redoubtable young hero as they saw the festive caravan approach and, giving a spasmodic medley of squeaks and rattles, stop before the main porch.
“Suppose we haven’t got gas enough to grind one scissors,” Pee-wee whispered.
“It will only take four or five revolutions of the wheel to do that,” said Townsend. “Half a pint of gas ought to earn us the price of four or five gallons.”