"It's all right," he said; "we're safe in going there. See this? It's a splinter from the flagpole——"
"A souveneerr!" Archer interrupted.
"There you go again," said Tom. "Who's talking about souvenirs? See how white and fresh the wood is—look. That's off the end of the pole where it's carved into kind of a fancy topknot. And it was whittled inside of a year."
"I could whittle it inside of an hour," said Archer.
"I mean it was whittled not longer than a year ago, 'cause even the weather hasn't got into it yet. And it's whittled like a fleur-de-lis—kind of," Tom added triumphantly.
"Why didn't you bring the whole of it?"
"When they were building the shacks at Temple Camp," said Tom, "there was a carpenter who was a Frenchman. I was good friends with him and he told me a lot of stuff. He always had some wine in his dinner pail. He showed me how French carpenters nail shingles. Instead of keeping the nails in their mouths like other carpenters do, they keep them up their sleeves and they can drop them down into their hands one by one as fast as they need them. They hit 'em four times instead of two—do you know why?"
"To drive 'em in," suggested Archer.
"'Cause in France they don't have cedar shingles, like we do; they have shingles made out of hard wood. And they get so used to hitting the nail four raps that they can't stop it—that's what he said."
"Here's another one," said Archer. "You can't drive a nail with a sponge—no matter how you soak it."