“Well, you see chocolate may be all very fine in its place; but it never can make me forget how much I love coffee, bacon and eggs, with flapjacks to wind up the meal on. Now don’t think I’m scorning chocolate, because it isn’t so; I’ll eat every scrap of my cake, and be glad to have it; but oh! what an empty void there’ll be after I’m done.”
Amos must have heard them talking, for he now sat up and wanted to know who had mentioned coffee.
“Thought I whiffed it brewing, for a fact,” he sniffed, making a wry face, “but it was all imagination. Think of starting a whole long day on a silly piece of chocolate; but if the rest of you can stand it I’m not going to kick.”
“That’s sensible of you, Amos,” laughed Elmer; “though kicking wouldn’t be apt to help matters any, it strikes me. Let’s sit around and talk of our late visitor.”
“Yes, we’d like to hear more details about how he went away,” urged the lengthy chum, as he clawed in a pocket for the square of hard chocolate, which upon being produced he started to gnaw at eagerly as if the mere thought of having no breakfast in prospect made him simply ferocious for something upon which to “fill up.”
Elmer told all he knew as they sat there, waiting for the sun to appear and warm the chilly early morning air, before thinking of making a start.
“Well, I’m glad for one,” ventured Amos, “he decided to take French leave, and it was all owing to your fine trick, Elmer, in making him believe those two asylum guards were around here, and apt to drop in on us any old time. Only for that he might be sticking to us as tight as any old plaster; or the Old Man of the Sea who fastened himself to the back of Sindbad the Sailor, you may remember, and refused to dismount.”
They were not long in making way with their scant allowance of chocolate. Elmer knew that it would be of considerable benefit in allaying the pangs of hunger; but Wee Willie could not forgive himself for not fetching a supply of “real stuff” along.
“Shucks! we might have known we’d be out all night, and want breakfast after a hard day’s work, and a night in the open, without even our blankets to make things seem half-way cozy. Catch me doing such a silly trick again—if I do I’ll eat my hat, believe me.”
“The Camp Fire Boys never make the same mistake twice running,” boasted Amos, and then in a lower voice adding: “though they do have a way of finding out fresh ways for doing the wrong things.”