"Yer dasn' say it again."

"You can't catch, you can't catch, you can't catch," said Pee-wee.

There seemed nothing left now but to break off diplomatic relations
altogether. The issue was clear. But Keekie Joe did not plunge his
outlandish person into war.

"If I didn' have ter lay keekie I'd slam yer one," he announced.

"What's the use of giving you candy if we can't be friends?" Pee-wee
said. "Gee whiz, I wouldn't care how much candy fellers threw at me;
the more the merrier. They can throw mince pies at me for all I care,"
he added. "If you want to be a scout I'll show you how and we can
start a patrol maybe."

[Illustration: Keekie Joe interviews Pee-wee]

The word patrol seemed to suggest something ominous to Keekie Joe, for
he glanced furtively up and down the alley, and then waved his hand
reassuringly to the group in the middle of the field.

Pee-wee perceived now that the scene of the crap game had been selected
with keen military wisdom, affording a safe avenue of precipitate
retreat in any direction. Disaster could have resulted only from a
surrounding host. Officer McMahon, the tyrant on this squalid beat,
was large. But he was not large enough to surround the camp.

The crap-shooters of Barrel Alley had been surprised in every nook and