He had grown to admire and to like Barnard immensely. It was the liking born of gratitude and close association, but it was the liking, also, which the steady, dull, stolid nature is apt to feel for one who is light and vivacious. Barnard's way of talking, particularly his own brand of slang, was very captivating to sober Tom, who could do big things but not little things. He had told himself many times that Barnard's scouts "must be crazy about him." And Barnard had laughed and said, "They must be crazy if they like me...."
"He says I'm queer," Tom mused, "but he's queer, too, in a way. I guess a lot of people don't understand him. It's because he's happy-go-lucky. It's funny he didn't know about shadow bridges, because it's in the handbook." Then Tom couldn't remember whether it was in the handbook or not.... "Anyway, he's got the right idea about good turns," he reflected. "I met lots of scouts that never read the handbook; I met scoutmasters, too...."
And indeed there were few scouts, or scoutmasters either, who had followed the trail through the handbook with the dogged patience of Tom Slade. He had mastered scouting the same as he had mastered this job.
Barnard was pretty restive that night, tossed on his bunk, and complained much of his head aching. "It feels like an egg being beaten by an egg beater," he said; "I'm off the shadow bridge stuff for good and all. It throbs to the tune of Over There."
Tom thought this must be pretty bad—to throb to the tune of Over There. He had never had a headache like that.
"If you could only fall asleep," Tom said.
"Well, I guess I will; I'm pretty good at falling," his friend observed. "I fell for you, hey Slady? O-h-h! My head!"
"It's the same with me," said Tom.
"You got one too? Good night!"
"I mean about what you were saying—about falling for me. It's the same with me."