" said Roy; "enough to
last for at least thirty seconds."

"You'd better ask General Slade," said Doc; "he's the only one that
carries that article around with him."

"How about that, Tommy?" Wig Weigand asked pleasantly.

Tom smiled appreciatively, and seemed on the point of saying something,
but he didn't.

There was one other scout, too, who made a specialty of silence in that
hilarious Bedlam, and that was a gaunt, thin, little fellow with streaky
hair and a pale face, who sat huddled up, apparently enjoying the
banter, laughing with a bashful, silent laugh. He made no noise
whatever, except when occasionally he coughed, and the others seemed
content to let him enjoy himself in his own way. His eyes had a singular
brightness, and when he laughed his white teeth and rather drawn mouth
gave him almost a ghastly appearance. He seemed as much of an odd number
as Tom himself, but not in the same way, for Tom was matter-of-fact and
stolid, and this little gnome of a scout seemed all nerves and repressed
excitement.

"Let's have a chunk of silence, Alf," Roy called to him.

"Go ahead," Doc shouted.

"If there's going to be a collection, let's get it over with," Westy put
in.

Roy, standing on the table, continued:

"SCOUTS AND SCOUTLETS:

"Owing to the high cost of silence, which is as scarce as sugar at these
meetings, I will only detain you a couple of minutes...."

"Don't step on the cake," Doc yelled.

"The object of this meeting is, to vote on whether we'll go into the
city to-morrow and get some stuff we'll need up at camp.

"Artie has got a list of the things we need, and they add up to four
dollars and twenty-two cents. If each fellow chips in a quarter, we'll
have enough. Each fellow that wants to go has to pay his own railroad
fare--Alf is going with me, so he should worry.

"I don't suppose that Marshall Slade will condescend and we should
worry. If we're going up to camp on the first of August, we'll have to
begin getting our stuff together--the sooner the quicker--keep still,
I'm not through. We were all saying how numbers look funny on scout
cabins--five, six, seven. It reminds you too much of school. Uncle Jeb
said it would be a good idea for us to paint the pictures of our patrol
animals on the doors and scratch off the numbers, because the way it is
now, the cabins all look as if they had automobile licenses, and he said
Daniel Boone would drop dead if he saw anything like that--Cabin B 2