ith him. How Roy
and Pee-wee chanced to miss this I do not know.

The girl said very little, but stared at him until at last he said, "Are
you looking at that scar? It don't look good, but it'll go away, I
guess."

"How did you get it?" she asked.

"He gave his place to another man," said Roscoe, "and was dumped into
the ocean alone."

"A chunk of wood banged me in the forehead," said Tom simply.

"Tom, I want you to do me a favor," said Roscoe, while Margaret
continued to gaze at him. "It's a terribly impolite thing to suggest,
but if you'd be willing to walk over to East Bridgeboro with Margaret, I
could go home and get my things together. I'm afraid I'll miss the only
train. You come to my house afterward and go to the train with me. You
don't mind, do you, Marge? He'll protect you from the lions and tigers."

If she minded she didn't show it.

"I--ain't dressed up," said Tom awkwardly.

"I'm so glad of that!" she said.

* * * * *

Never in his life had he walked with a girl anywhere near his own age,
and he felt just as he had felt that gala day when he had chatted with
her in Temple Camp office. And because he was flustered and knew of
nothing in particular to say, he repeated just what he had said
then--that he could see she liked Roscoe, and he added that he didn't
blame her, for Roscoe was "so good-looking in his uniform--kind of."

To this she made no answer; but after a few minutes she said, "Will you
take me through Barrel Alley where you used to live?"

So Tom took her through Barrel Alley, answering her questions about his
experiences and telling of spies and torpedoings and his rescue and
cruise to South America simply, almost dully, as if they were things
which were not worth talking about.

When they came behind John Temple's big bank building, they stood on the
barrel staves whence the alley derived its name and counted the floors
and picked out the windows of Temple Camp office.

"You'll come in and see Mr. Burton in the morning, won't you?" she said.

"Maybe," said Tom.

The good scout trail, which had wound over half the earth, took them on
down that poor, sordid alley, and he showed her the tenement where he
had once lived.

"The day we got put out," he said simply, "the sheriff stood a beer can
on my mother's picture."

"Oh!" she said; "and then?"

"Nothing then," said Tom, "only I knocked him into the gutter. I got
arrested."

They came out