Dorry said, “I guess if Warde Hollister saw us now he’d say we’re up against a real adventure.”
“All he wants is to be a movie actor,” Pee-wee said. “That’s what he told me. He said scouts were just kids. I bet he’d have to admit that this is a dark mystery, all right.”
Dorry said, “I know that man’s name all right, it’s Copley. Often I see him at the station.”
“I knew he had something to do with cops,” Hunt said. “I wonder how soon we’ll know what’s up his sleeve.”
“I wonder how soon he’ll pass the cake,” Pee-wee said.
Anyway we didn’t have to wait long for the refreshments. Mrs. Copley came out and passed around cake and cookies and things and she was nice and friendly. And while we were sprawling around on the porch eating, a man came around with a couple of ladders.
Mrs. Copley said, “I’ll just lay this plate of cookies on the table and you boys can help yourselves while you’re waiting for Mr. Copley to come out.” Then she put the plate on a little wicker table over near the end of the porch. After that she went in the house.
Pee-wee said, “Those cookies are good, I’m going to have a couple more.”
“Don’t go over to the end of the porch,” I told him. “We have to stay right here in front of the door; this is where the bee-line is.”
“The bee-line can have a branch to it while we’re waiting,” the kid said. “Maybe the bee-line might be wider than you think—maybe.”