So I got up and said, "How are we going to crowd twenty--four growing
boys and a parrot into a twenty foot launch?"

"It can't be did," Doc Carson shouted. "Then some of us will have to
hike it on our dear little feet," I said.

"Or else we'll have to get a barge or something or other and tow it,"
Artie Van Arlen said.

"What, with a three horse-power engine?" somebody else shouted.

"You can bet I won't be one of the ones to hike it," Pee-wee yelled;
"I'll dope out some scheme or other."

And believe me, he did.

Well, after we'd been talking about an hour or so on how we'd manage it,
Mr. Ellsworth, our scoutmaster, up and said there was plenty of time for
that as long as we were not going to camp for a couple of weeks anyway,
and that we'd better begin thinking of how we were going to start about
collecting books for soldiers.

All the while I had something very important to or say, and I was kind of
trembling, as you might say, "for I thought maybe Mr. Ellsworth wouldn't
like the idea. Anyway I got up and began:

"The author that wrote all about 'Tom Slade's adventures in the World
War'," I said, "told me it would be a good idea for one to write up our
troop's adventures and he'd help me to get them published."