Harry said, “The trouble with those heavy duty watches is they’re not intended for night work. They work all right in the daytime, but you see at night when they haven’t got the sun to go by, they get to sprinting——”
“Do you know what kind of a watch this is?” Pee-wee shouted at him. “It’s a scout watch——”
Brent said in that sober way of his, “That’s just the trouble. Those scout watches go scout-pace. A scout is always ahead of time; so is a scout watch. If a scout watch is supposed to arrive at three o’clock, it arrives at two—an hour beforehand. A scout is prompt.”
“Positively,” Harry said; “by to-morrow morning that watch will be an hour ahead of time. It’ll beat every other watch by an hour.”
“I bet it’s right on the minute to-morrow morning,” Pee-wee shouted. “That’s a scout watch; it’s advertised in Boys’ Life. The ad. said it keeps perfect time.”
“How long have you had it?” Rossie Bent wanted to know.
“My father gave it to me for a present on account of this trip,” the kid said; “he gave it to me just before I started off.”
“So you haven’t had it overnight yet?” Brent asked him. “You don’t know whether it’s good at night work or not.”
“They always race in the dark,” Harry said; “that’s the trouble with those boy scout watches.”
By this time the colored porter and about half a dozen passengers were standing around listening and laughing.