The boy said, controlling his exultation:
"It has to be left at our District Headquarters until to-morrow. You see—it's rather a special affair. It's not a flying stick, like the things I used to make when I was a shaver, nor a glider—you see men in spectacles flying those every day to please the kids on Hampstead Heath and in Kensington Gardens, but a model of a Bristol monoplane with a span of thirty inches, and a main-plane-area of a hundred and fifty"—he caught his breath and with difficulty kept his eager words from tumbling over one another as he reached the thrilling climax—"and I built up her fuselage with cardboard and sticking-plaster out of the First Aid case you gave me to carry in my belt-pouch, and cut the propeller out of a tin toy engine I've had ever since I was a kid—and made the planes of big sheets of stiff foolscap strengthened with thin strips of glued wood, and her spars, sir!—the upright ones are quills, and her stays and struts I made of copper wire and she's weighted with lead ribbon like what you wrap about the gut when you're bottom-fishing for tench or barbel—and her motor-power is eighteen inches of square elastic twisted—and father"—he broke into a war-dance of ecstasy unrestrained—"when Roddy Wrynche and me went on a secret expedition to Primrose Hill to test her—she flew, sir! First go-off—by George!"
"Really flew? ... You are certain?"
"Upon my life, sir, and that's my Honour. Scout's Honour and life are the same thing. That's what the Oath rubs into us." He squared his shoulders and lowered his voice as a boy speaking of high matters that must be dealt with reverently. "I think it's—ripping. I can say it. Would you like me to?"
Saxham nodded without speaking, because of that choking something sticking in his throat. That something Lear called "the mother." And, dammed away behind his eyes, were scalding tears that only men may shed. As the young voice said:
"On my Honour I promise that I will do my best to be loyal to God and the King.
"On my Honour I promise that I will do my best to Help other people at all times.
"On my Honour I promise that I will do my best to obey the Scout Law.... You see"—the boyish arm was on Saxham's shoulder now, the ruddy-fair cheek pressed against the pale, close-shaven face—"you see, Father, when a Scout says 'On my Honour' it's just as if he swore on the Crucifix!"
Saxham said, crushing down the fierce emotion that had almost mastered him:
"It is—just the same! For the man who breaks a promise will never keep an oath.... I have a friend of whom I have told you.... I think he would like to hear about your model aëroplane.... May I tell him, or would you prefer to tell him yourself?"