CHAPTER XXXI
THE CAPTAIN’S ORDERS
Maybe it wasn’t a very good speech, but anyway, he was nicer than he was before and he had an awful funny twinkle in his eye.
Then he said, “So you know how to dive, huh, sonny? Can you keep your mouth shut?”
“Sure, you have to keep your mouth shut when you dive,” Pee-wee yelled up from the rowboat, and then the old man just had to laugh.
“I mean when you’re on land, sonny,” he said.
“Sure I can,” I told him.
“Well, then,” he said, “if any of you scout kids goes about sayin’ as how Uncle Jimmy went away to the convention, and I ever meet you in your old skiff, by the Big Dipper I’ll run you down and cut you in half, that’s what I’ll do! Do you hear?” he shouted. “If you ever run afoul o’ the Gineral Grant in the bay or anywheres else, by thunder, I’m Cap’n Savage, I am, and onct upon a time I was Major Savage, and I should be at that there convention myself, instead of standing here blowing away at a better soldier than me!”
“Don’t you care, we’ll forgive you,” Pee-wee shouted up.
“Keep him quiet, will you?” I called down to Westy.
“Ask me something easy,” Westy said.