Mr. Pinchem just stepped out of the boat and gave him a shove and said, “You’ve been stealing somebody’s phonograph, huh? I’ll have to look into that.”
I said, “Good night, go ahead and look into it. All you’ll see is a lot of junk.”
Mr. Pinchem and that other man just stood there laughing and he said, “Well, what’s on your minds? You want to get across, do you?”
I said, “We want to get across in a bee-line. Do you see that tree just across the river? The one near the shore. That’s in a bee-line with that big tree away up there on west ridge. So if you’d be willing to take the end of this rope across and fasten it to that tree, then maybe you can row us over without drifting with the tide. We have to go in a bee-line.”
He said, “Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, now, suppose that bee-line takes you right through the County Jail. What then?”
Pee-wee looked kind of frightened.
“That’s up to the County Jail,” I said. “If the County Jail doesn’t get out of the way, we go through it. Didn’t you ever hear that boy scouts are invincible?”
Pee-wee said, “They’re not—exactly—they’re not always so very invincible. See? They have to be courteous. If you asked us not to go through the jail, we wouldn’t. See?”
Westy said, “We’ve even been through public school, we’re so smart.”