Pee-wee said, “Sure, you’re crazy to go—anybody that goes is crazy. I’m not, because I’m so used to him I don’t mind him—” he meant me.
“The pleasure is yours and many of them,” I told him. “I take you because I want to do Temple Camp a good turn. I’d like to be here sometime when you’re away to see how it is when you’re not here. If I could be somewhere else when you’re in another place, that’s my idea of the end of a perfect day.”
“Now you hear how he talks!” the kid shouted. I said, “Look out, you’ll tip the boat over.”
“When he talks like that he calls it an argument,” he yelled. “You fellers will see before we get through—you’ll rue the day—”
“Goodness me, such fine language to be using on a week day,” I told him. “I never rued a day yet, but even if I knew how to rue one, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Even before we start he has to talk crazy,” Pee-wee said.
All the while we were rowing around on the lake. I said, “This is my idea—all those not in favor of it, shut up. If two vote against the other two, it’s a majority.”
“For which side?” the kid shouted.
“For both sides,” I told him. “What’s fair for one is fair for the other. United—”
“If you’re going to say, ‘united, we stand, divided we sprawl’ you needn’t say it,” the kid screamed at me. “I heard you say it fifty quadrillion times and it hasn’t got any sense to it!”