Pee-wee and Mr. Ellsworth sauntered up the street.

"He won't now," said the scoutmaster. "I have his promise."

"Otherwise, do you think he would?"

"I think it extremely likely."

"And lie about his age?"

Mr. Ellsworth screwed his face into a funny, puzzled look. "There's a
good deal of that kind of thing going on," he said, "and I sometimes
think the recruiting people wink at it, or perhaps they are just a
little too ready to judge by physical appearance. Look how Billy Wade
got through."

"He doesn't look eighteen," said Roy.

"Of course he doesn't. But he told them he was 'going on nineteen,' and
so he was--just the same as Pee-wee is going on fifty."

Roy laughed.

"The honor of enlisting, the willingness to sacrifice one's life, seems
to cover a multitude of sins in the eyes of some people," said the
scoutmaster. "Heroic duty done for one's country will wipe out a lot of
faults.--It's hard to get a line on Tom's thoughts. He asked me the
other day what I thought about the saying, _To do a great right, do a
little wrong._ I don't know where he rooted it out, but it gave me a
shudder when he asked me."

"He was standing in front of the recruiting station down at the
postoffice yesterday," said Roy, "staring at the posters. Goodness
only knows what he was thinking about. He came along with me when he
saw me."

"Hmmm," said Mr. Ellsworth thoughtfully.

"But I guess he wouldn't try anything like that here--the town is too
small," said Roy. "Even the recruiting fellow knows him."

"Yes; but what worries me," said Mr. Ellsworth, "is when he goes to the
city and stands around listening to the orators and watches the young
fellows surging into the recruiting places. That phrase, _Your country
needs you_, is dinging in his ears."

"He'd get through in a walk," said Roy.

"That's just the trouble," Mr. Ellsworth mused. "Tom would never do
anything that he thought wrong," he added, after a pause; "but he has a
way of doping things out for himself, and sometimes he asks queer
questions."

"Well, he promised you, anyway," said Roy finally.

"Oh, yes, that settles it," Mr. Ellsworth said. "All's well that ends
well."

"We should worry," said Roy, in his usual light-hearted manner.

"That's just what I _shan't_ do," the scoutmaster answered.

"All right, so long, see you later," Roy called, as he started up
Blakeley's hill.

Mr. Ellsworth and Pee-wee waved him goodnight. Presently Pee-wee
deserted a