It would be hard to determine whether the boarders were better pleased at having the dullness taken out of their knives and scissors or out of their lives, for a while at least. Alas, neither form of dullness would be long in abeyance. The emery treatment would not last long, the entertainment was but the thing of an hour.
But if a laugh isn’t worth ten cents with a sharpened scissors thrown in as a premium, why then a scout might as well beg and be done with it. When you consider the overhead expenses, you can’t make people laugh and sharpen scissors for less than ten cents—it can’t be done.
CHAPTER XXVII
TOWNSEND AND HIS FLIVVER
“I think boy scouts are wonderful,” said a lady boarder.
“Sure they are,” Pee-wee agreed. “They can’t take anything for a service; they can’t take any money unless they earn it. They’re supposed to almost starve and then think up a way not to, kind of. See?”
He sat on the edge of the porch waiting for Townsend to transform the grindstone back into a wheel. “They have to depend on themselves,” he added. “You can’t starve them because they can eat roots. Of course that isn’t saying they won’t eat pie.”
“I understand,” said a man.
“They eat most everything,” Pee-wee said.
“Oh, how terrible,” said a girl.