I said, “Scouts, that old railroad car over near the station belongs to us. It’s our trooproom. It has to be moved on this old track down to the river. Tony Giovettioegleirotti, who keeps that lunch wagon, has defied us. We bought twenty-four frankfurters from him and he wouldn’t move his wagon. So what are we going to do about it?”
“Foil him!” Pee-wee shouted.
“We haven’t got any tinfoil,” someone else hollered.
“Listen,” I said; “everybody keep still. We’re going to have games and scout pace races and things, but nothing to eat. Every scout has to promise that no matter how hungry he is, he won’t go over and buy anything from Tony. I’m going to appoint a committee to go over there and keep smacking their lips, but——”
“I’ll be on that committee!” Pee-wee shouted.
“You’ll be on the ground if you don’t keep still!” I told him. “You fellows are supposed to go over there in small detachments, kind of, and hang around, and jingle the money in your pockets, and act as if you were hungry——”
“I can act that way!” Pee-wee shouted.
“Sure, just act natural,” I told him. “You’ve had practice enough being hungry.”
“What’s the big idea?” somebody called out.
“The big idea is to mobilize all our appetites,” I said. “When Tony sees this whole bunch of scouts—a hundred and seventy-nine appetites—and finds out that none of us is going to go over there and buy a single sandwich from him; when he finds that we spurn his pie, what will he do? He’ll move his wagon over here. That’s high strategy. It’s so high you have to use a stepladder to get up to it. The scout appetite, when it acts in, what d’you call it, unison can move anything!”