Then he said, “Were you one of the kids who were coming along with my father when I jumped out of the boat?” And I told him yes. Then he said, “You don’t think he saw me, do you?” I said, “Yes, he saw you, but I guess he didn’t know who you were, he didn’t see your face, that’s sure.”

“Thank goodness for that,” he said, “because I’ve caused the old gent a lot of trouble.”

“Anyway,” I told him, “I don’t see why you don’t wear your uniform. Gee, if I had a lieutenant’s uniform you bet I’d wear it.”

“Would you?” he said, and he began to laugh. Then he said, “Well, now, let’s sit down here on this bench and I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, and then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, and we’ll have to be quick about it.” Then he looked out over the water and listened and as soon as he was sure nobody was coming, he put his arm over my shoulder and made me sit down on the bench beside him. I have to admit I kind of liked that fellow, even though I kind of thought he was, you know, wild, sort of. It seemed as if he was the kind of a fellow to have a lot of adventures and to be reckless and all that.

“Maybe you can tell me what you’re going to do,” I told him, “but you can’t tell me what I’m going to do that’s one sure thing.”

“Oh, yes I can,” he said, “because you’re a bully kid and you’re an A-1 sport, and you and I are going to be pals. What do you say?”

“I can’t deny that I like you,” I said, “and I bet you’ve been to a lot of places.”

“France, Russia, South America, Panama and Montclair, New Jersey,” he said, “and Bronx Park.” Gee, I didn’t know how to take him, he was so funny.

“Ever been up in an airplane?” he said.

“Cracky, I’d like to,” I told him.

“I went from Paris to the Channel in an airplane,” he said.

Then he gave me a crack on the back and he put his arm around my shoulder awful nice and friendly like, and it made me kind of proud because I knew him.

“Now, you listen here,” he said, “I’m in a dickens of a fix. You live in Bridgeboro; do you know Jake Holden?”

“Sure I know him, he’s a fisherman,” I said; “the very same night your father told us we could use this boat I saw him, and the next day I went to try to find him for a certain reason, and he was gone away down the bay after fish. He taught me how to fry eels.”

“Get out,” he said, “really?”

“Honest, he did,” I told him.

“Well, some day I’ll show you how to cook bear’s meat. There’s something you don’t know.”

“Did you ever cook bear’s meat?” I asked him.

“Surest thing you know,” he said; “black bears, gray bears, grisly bears ”

“Jiminy,” I said.

Then he went on and this is what he told me, keeping his arm around my shoulder and every minute or so listening and looking out over the water. “Here’s something you didn’t know,” he said. Gee, I can remember every word almost, because you bet I listened. A fellow couldn’t help listening to him. He said, “When Jake Holden went down the bay, your Uncle Dudley was with him.”

I said, “You mean you?”

“I mean me,” he said. “I was home from Camp Dix on a short leave and was on my way to see the old gent and the rest of the folks, when who should I run plunk into but that old water rat. It was five o’clock in the morning, and I was just taking a hop, skip and a jump off the train. ‘Come on down the bay fishing,’ he says. ‘What, in these togs?’ I told him. ’I’ll get ’em all greased up and what’ll Uncle Sam say?’ ‘Go home and get some old ones,’ he said. ‘’Gainst the rules,’ I said, ‘can’t be running around in civilized clothes.’ ’You should worry about civilized clothes,’ he said. ’Go up to your dad’s old house-boat in the marshes and get some fishin’ duds on the locker’s full of ’em.’ ’Thou hast said something,’ I told him; ’go and get your old scow ready and I’m with you.’”

Then he hit me a good rap on the shoulder and said, “So you see how it was, kiddo? Instead of going home to hear how handsome I looked, I just beat it up that creek and fished this suit of greasy rags out of one of the lockers. There was a key in the padlock and I just took off my uniform and stuffed it in the locker and beat it over to Little Landing in Bridgeboro.”

“You locked the padlock and took the key, didn’t you?” I said.

“Righto,” he said, “and I thought I’d be back that same night and down to Dix again by morning. See? But instead of that, here I am and blamed near a week gone by and Uncle Sam on the hunt for me. A nice pickle I’m in. What do you say?”

“Gee, I wouldn’t want to be you,” I said; “anyway, I’m sorry for you. But I don’t see why you didn’t go back like you said.” Then he went over to the railing and looked all around in a hurry.

“I guess they won’t be back for an hour yet,” I told him; “they went to the movies.”

So he came back and sat down beside me again and began talking very excited, as if I was kind of a friend of his, the way he talked. You know what I mean. And, cracky, any fellow would be glad to be a friend of his, that’s sure, even if he was kind of reckless and you know.

He said, “I had so many adventures, old top, that I couldn’t tell ’em to you. Jakey and I have Robinson Crusoe tearing his hair from jealousy. Kiddo, this last week has been a whole sea story; in itself just one hair’s-breadth escape after another. Ever read Treasure Island?”

“Did I!” I said.

Then he said, “Well Treasure Island is like a church social compared to what I’ve been through. Some day I’m going to tell you about it.”

I said, “I wish you’d tell me now.”

“Some night around the camp-fire I’ll tell you,” he said. “We were fishing off Sea Gate and the fish just stood on line waiting for a chance to bite. We sold three boatfuls in the one day and whacked up about seventy dollars what do you think of that? Then we chugged around into Coney for gas and on the way back we got mussed up with the tide and were carried out to sea banged around for three days, bailing and trying to fry fish on the muffler. On the fourth day we were picked up by a fishing schooner about fifty miles off Rockaway and towed in. I said to Jakey, I’m Mike Corby, remember that, and if you give your right name I’ll kill you you’ve got to protect me,’ I said, ’because I’m in bad.’ You see how it was, kiddo? I was three days overdue at camp and didn’t even have my uniform. I was so tired bailing and standing lookout that when they set us down on the wharf at Rockaway, I could have slept standing on my head. And I’ve gone without sleep fifty hours at a stretch on the West Front in France would you believe it?”

“Sure, I believe it,” I told him.

“I’ll tell you the whole business some day when you and I are on the hike.”

I said, “Cracky, you can bet I’d like to go on a hike with you.”

“That’s what we will,” he said, “and we’ll swap adventures.”

I told him I didn’t have any good ones like he had to swap, but anyway, I was glad he got home all right.

“All right!” he said, “you mean all wrong. Maybe you saw the accounts in the papers of the two fishermen who were picked up after a harrowing experience Mike Corby and Dan McCann. That was us. I left Jakey down at Rockaway to wait for his engine to be fixed and beat it out to Jersey. No house-boat! Was I up in the air? Didn’t even dare to go up to the house and ask about it. That rotten little newspaper in Bridgeboro had a big headliner about me disappearing ’never seen after leaving Camp Dix; whereabouts a mystery’ that’s what it said, ‘son of Professor Donnelle.’ What’d you think of that?”

I told him I was mighty sorry for him, and I was, too.

Then he said how he went to New York in those old rags, and tried not to see anybody he knew and even he hid his face when he saw Mr. Cooper on the train. And then he telephoned out to Bridgeboro and Little Valley and made believe he was somebody else, and said he heard the houseboat was for sale and in that way he found out about his father loaning it to our troop, and how we were probably anchored near St. George at Staten Island. Oh, boy, didn’t he hurry up to get there, because he was afraid we might be gone.

So then he waited till night and he was just wondering whether it would be safe to wait till we were all asleep and then sneak onto the boat, when all of a sudden he saw the fellows coming ashore and he got near and listened and he heard them speak about going to the movies, and he heard one fellow say something about how Roy would be sorry he didn’t come. And do you want to know what he told me? This is just what he said; he said, “When I heard your name was Roy, I knew you’d be all right see? Because look at Rob Roy,” he said; “wasn’t he a bully hero and a good scout and a fellow you could trust with a secret wasn’t he?” That’s just what he said. “You take a fellow named Roy,” he said, “and you’ll always find him true and loyal.” He said there was a fellow named Roy on the West Front and he gave up his life before he’d tell on a comrade.

Then he said, “You see how it is with me, Skeezeks, I’m in a peck of trouble and I’ve got to get those army duds on and toddle back to camp as soon as I can get there and face the music. I’ve got to make an excuse I’ve got to get that blamed uniform pressed somehow I suppose it’s creased from the dampness in that locker. I’ve got to straighten matters out if I can. I just managed to save my life, and by heck, I’ll be lucky if I can just save my honor and that’s the plain truth.”

“So you see I’ve got a lot to do,” he said, “and you’ve got just the one thing to do, and that’s a cinch. It’s to keep your mouth shut see? Suppose the old gent knew about this. Suppose my sister knew I was within a quarter of a mile of the house and didn’t go to see them. You know what girls are.”

I told him, “Sure, because I’ve got two sisters. And I bet they’d like you, too. I bet they’d say you were good looking.” Then he began to laugh and he said, “Well, I bet I’d like them too, if they’re anything like you. So now will you keep your mouth shut? Ever hear of the scouts’ oath? The Indian scouts’ oath, I mean loyalty for better or worser? Don’t say I was here. Don’t say you know anything about me. Keep your mouth shut. If my name should be mentioned, keep still. You don’t know anything. Nobody was here, see?”

I said, “Suppose Mr. Ellsworth or somebody should ask me?”

“Who’s going to ask you?” he said; “you say nothing and they’ll say nothing. I fought for my country, kiddo, and I’ve got two wounds. You don’t want to spoil it all for me now, do you?”

I said, “I bet you’re brave, anyhow.”

“I’d rather face two German divisions than what I’ve got to face to-morrow,” he said; “but if I know it’s all right at this end, I won’t worry. Are you straight?”

“I wouldn’t tell,” I told him; “cracky, why should I tell? And I can see you’ve got a lot of trouble and you’re not exactly all to blame, anyway. Only I hope I’ll see you again sometime because, anyway, whatever you did I kind of like you. It’s one of our laws that a fellow has to be loyal. Only sometime will you tell me some of the things you did I mean your adventures?”

“I’ll tell you all about the jungles and the man-eating apes down in Central America,” he said.

So then he went into the cabin in a big hurry and he took the key out of his pocket and he opened the locker and took out his uniform. It was all wrinkled and damp, but anyway, he looked fine in it, you can bet. After he got it all on and fixed right, he stuffed his old clothes into the place and locked it up again. I bet any girl would say he looked fine, that’s one thing sure.

Just before he climbed over the railing he put his hand in his pocket and took out some change and he was in such a hurry that he dropped some of it and it went all over the deck. I started to pick it up for him, but he only said, “Never mind, let it go, you can have all you find, and here’s a quarter to get a couple of sodas.”

I said, “We don’t take anything for a service, scouts don’t.”

“Well, you can have a soda on me, can’t you?” he said, trying to make me take the quarter.

“If you want me to be loyal to you, I have to be loyal if I make a promise, don’t I?” I said.

He said, “What promise?”

And I said, “I can’t take anything for a service.”

Then he hit me a rap on the shoulder and laughed and he punched me in the chest, not hard, only kind of as if to show me that he liked me. Then he said, “Bully for you, kiddo, you’re one little trump.” Then, all of a sudden he was gone.

Sometimes you can’t tell just why you like a fellow, but, anyway, I liked him just the same.