“I know what episodes are all right,” I told him; “didn’t my father have a couple of them. If there’s a narrow escape, that’s a sign it’s not an episode; it’s an adventure. You can have episodes any day.
“Well, there wasn’t a very narrow escape to that one, anyhow,” he said, laughing all the while; “it was about six feet wide, I guess. But here goes, if you want it. Gather closer around the fire, because this adventure is mighty wet.”
“That’s a sure sign it’s an adventure,” I told him, “because how can an episode get wet?”
“I guess you’re right,” he said; “it might get a little damp, but not really wet. Anyway, do you think you can keep still for about ten minutes?”
CHAPTER XIV
BUT I DIDN’T WRITE IT
The reason I said that about the two hundred dollars causing a lot of trouble at Temple Camp was, because a little fellow there named Skinny McCord (you’ll see him after a while) was suspected of stealing it. A lot of fellows thought he took it from a fellow while he was saving the fellow from drowning and then hid it in the house-boat. They thought that just because he went to the house-boat, and because they found out that he had a key to the locker. But all the while that money belonged to Harry Donnelle and he came up to Temple Camp and claimed it, after I wrote and told him all about Skinny. That’s how he happened to visit Temple Camp and you can bet I’m glad he did. Anyway, that’s all part of another story, and maybe you read it.
Now part of the story that Harry Donnelle told us, I knew already, but the other fellows didn’t, because I never told them how I had met him before. So this is the story just the way he told it to us that night, because afterward I got him to write it out for our hike record. And the reason I put it in here is, because it has something to do with the story that comes after this. So here it is, and oh boy, didn’t we listen as we sat around that camp-fire in Mr. Hasbrook’s orchard. That’s where stories are best—around the camp-fire.
HARRY DONNELLE’S YARN
Well, messmates, when my father told you that you could have the old house-boat for the summer, you never knew he had a son in the army, now, did you? But just the same, little Harry was trotting around in Camp Dix, all dolled up in his lieutenant’s uniform, waiting to be mustered out. Little Harry had just come home from France where he had been mixed up in the big—episode.
One fine day I said to myself, “While I’m waiting here, I guess I’ll go home.” So I got a short leave and the next that was seen of me I was stepping off the train in Bridgeboro. That was early in the morning; the dawn was just breaking. Pretty soon it broke. Just as it was all broken I saw Jake Holden, the fisherman, standing near the milk train. You’ll see that this is a fish story. It is a fishing episode.