“Gee whiz,” I said, “I don’t deny he was smarter than I am. But anyway, I know we’re not mistaken.”
“All right,” he said; “but I want you to let me do the talking. All I know about this savage beast is the twinkle in his eye. Twinkles are good things; you can usually bank on a twinkle. But you kids leave it to me; understand?”
I said, “It’ll be so still you’ll be able to hear the silence.”
“Because this is a pretty delicate business,” Harry said. “Even if Jib comes across all right, there’s still Gaylong. Our fingers mustn’t be seen in this pie. We’re going to try to make something happen, that’s all. If he knows that we had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t touch the reward. Gaylong is as white as a snowstorm.”
I said, “Take it from me a snowstorm is dark brown compared to him. I know that fellow.”
“Well, if we can just handle this wild what-is-it, we’ll put one over on Gaylong all right,” Harry said. “We’ll buy that cane for what’s-his-name and we’ll build that scout meeting-place. I’m getting kind of interested myself now. I haven’t been so worked up since I sold a phonograph to a king over there in the Cannibal Islands. As soon as he heard it talk, he wanted to eat it. Come on, get a hustle.”
When we got to Costello’s Mammoth Show, the people were crowding out. Harry went up to the wagon where they sold tickets and said, “Hello, Mr. Costello, how’s business?”
“Marvellous, magnificent!” he said in that big voice of his. “The town is spellbound by our sumptuous show. How are the young scouts?”
Harry told him we were all well, and asked him if I might go in and say good-bye to my friends.
“They will be proud to receive the young hero and his companions,” he said. And he waved his whip toward the door of the small tent. I kind of liked that man. You can like a person, even if he’s a kind of a faker.