“Absolutely,” said Grove.
“All right,” enthused Pee-wee, “if a patrol breaks up that’s the end of it, isn’t it? But the more this one breaks up the more patrols there are. I thought of it when I was eating a banana yesterday.”
“All right, Kiddo,” laughed Artie; “all I want to be sure of is that you’re not going to be sore if we take Billy Simpson in. Because I want to write to him and ask him to come up to camp and be initiated.”
“I’ll initiate him,” Pee-wee burst forth.
“And if this doesn’t work,” said Artie, “there’s plenty of material home in Bridgeboro.”
“Sure,” said Pee-wee, “I’d ask Carl Hansen because his father keeps a bakery and, anyway, I’m in the troop just the same, gee whiz, I’m with the Silver Foxes a lot.”
Grove and Artie looked at each other and walked along thoughtfully for a short distance. They could not just bring themselves to let Pee-wee leave the Raven Patrol, of which he was the main “rave.” He was theirs. They had not as many awards as the Elks and the Silver Foxes but at least they had Pee-wee. He was their great exhibit.
Artie was perplexed and just a little troubled at heart. The three patrols were full, the only way to let Billy Simpson in was to start a new patrol. It seemed likely enough that Pee-wee could do that; he was a born propagandist, a walking advertisement of scouting, but Artie did not want to drop him only to see him plunge into some outlandish enterprise which would land him nowhere.
He knew Pee-wee thoroughly, and he knew that Pee-wee, though he loved novelty and dealt in every manner of colossal scheme, after all loved his troop and his patrol and the fine, wholesome life of scouting. Good scout and good patrol leader that he was, Artie was not going to let Pee-wee be the victim of his own delusions. Moreover, now that it came to the point of actually deciding the matter he had a strange feeling something akin to homesickness at the thought of Pee-wee leaving the Ravens. Pee-wee’s own irresponsible and cheerful willingness to do so rather increased this feeling.
“Well, Kid,” said Artie finally, “as Mr. Ellsworth says, there’s room for a half a dozen more patrols in Bridgeboro, and you’re the scout to round some of those fellows up—”