ll dancing but they're good and hungry. Maybe
they look happy but they're not."

"Do dey all go round in dem things?" Keekie Joe ventured to inquire.

"No, but I'm lucky," said Pee-wee.

It seemed to Keekie Joe that Pee-wee was very lucky.

"I've got the best part of the party here," said Pee-wee, holding onto
a tree alongshore to keep the island from drifting. "You better hurry
up because I can't hold it here; I can only hold it here
about--about--seven seconds. Only you can't come on unless you join
because we need one more feller. So will you join? If you will you
can have all the ice cream you want, because I got a right to all these
things. And there's cake goes with it too, and everything. It
includes chicken salad and sandwiches and everything. So will you
join? I'm the boss of all these things, I am, you can ask Minerva
Skybrow. I'm the boss of the olives and--and--everything."

"Did yer swipe 'em?" Keekie Joe asked, looking furtively around as if
he thought that Pee-wee might be shadowed while in possession of such
boundless wealth.

"I got them on account of being lucky," Pee-wee said. "I pulled a
stick out of the ground and it was a dandy mistake so that shows you'd
better stick to me, because I make lots of dandy mistakes. I make them
every day; sometimes I make two in one day and I've got nine ideas for
next week and all these eats besides. You needn't be afraid to get
on," he added, "because it'll drift up the river now and it won't go
past Bridgeboro on account of Waring's reef. There's where I want it
to stick because if it sticks there it'll stay there, you can bet.
Come on, don't you be scared."

Then, with sudden inspiration, he added, "This is a peachy place to lay
keekie for cops, because you can see all around you away, _way_ off.
And when all this food is gone there'll be apples getting ripe on this
tree and you won't have to speak for cores either, because you can have
whole apples, all you want of them. That's what scouts do, they eat
and they stay out all night and they're wild, kind of. And they don't
care what happens, and anyway the ice cream is melting all the time, so
will you join?"

Keekie Joe, still hesitating in profound astonishment, and a little
fearful of this strange apparition with its presiding genius saw that
if he were going to act he must act quickly for though Pee-wee was king
of the island he seemed not able to govern its capricious fancy.
Clutch th