ven a thief.

"You don't know anything about them," he said, holding up his head as if
proudly claiming brotherhood with those distant heroes in their rich,
wonderful attire; "I won't talk about them. Because I know about them
even--even if they don't know _me_. They sent me a message; they didn't
know, but they did it just the same. So I belong too. You can make
believe you have a uniform--you can. You can be miles and miles and
miles and miles--"

He paused and listened. Down the road, in the still night, sounded the
gentle melody of clanking milk cans mingled with the pensive strains of
loose and squeaking wheels. It was the melodious orchestra which always
heralded the approach of Ham Sanders who was so strong that he could
handle a bull.

"Do you think I'm scared?" said Pee-wee.

Evidently he was not.

CHAPTER XXV

BEDLAM

That Pee-wee Harris, the only original boy scout, positively guaranteed,
should be pronounced _not_ a scout! Why that was like saying that water
was not wet or (to use a more fitting comparison) that mince pie was not
good.

To say that Pee-wee Harris was in the scouts would not be saying enough.
Rather should it be said that the scouts were all in Pee-wee Harris. The
Scout movement had not swallowed _him_, he had swallowed it, the same as
he swallowed everything else. He had swallowed it whole. He was the boy
scout just as much as Uncle Sam is the United States, except that he was
much greater and more terrible than Uncle Sam. Oh, much. He was just as
much a boy scout as the Fourth of July is a noise. Except that he was
more of a noise.

And here was a shabby, eager-faced boy, with pantaloons like stovepipes
almost reaching his ankles and a ticking shirt with a pattern like a
checker-board; a quaint, queer youngster, living a million miles from
nowhere, telling him that he was no scout, that he was a thief.

"Hey, mister," Pee-wee shouted to Ham Sanders who drove up, "I'm
rescuing this automobile from two men that stole it and I got another
one to help me and he was trying to steal it and it belongs to a man I
know where I live and I was at the movies with him, and that feller said
he'd take it back and this feller says I'm a thief and I'm good and
hungry."

Ham Sanders gave one look at him and said, "Oh, is that so?"

"It's more than so," Pee-wee shouted, "and I'm going to stick to this
automobile, I don't care what. If you say I'm not a scout I can prove
it."

"You n