lots to see who'd be deck steward for the day, and Skinny was the one. That meant he'd have to swee

le we were peeling the potatoes, Skinny came in and showed me three or four dimes and some pennies, and said he found them on

better give them to Mr. Ellsworth. "One of them is a French co

mbing over the rail," Charlie said, "and maybe didn

a French coin and l

, Mr. Ellsworth asked us if any fellow owned a French coin that was missing. Nobody said yes, and then he said, kind of funny like, "Well, I suppose this is what our young friend

d Mr. Ellsworth said we'd give that to Skinny, because he found the money. He

would have done. Maybe it would have been all right to keep still because I wasn't dead sure whose it was. But all the while I kn

rit badge, it's for keeping my eyes open, and will you bore a hole

e rest of the fellows. Even if it was only a little thing that he was interested in, he got all excited about it, and his eyes got all bright and if he grabbed you by the arm you could feel that his hand was trembling-he'd be so excited. We made a lot of allowance for him, because he was sick and came out of the slums, but anyway, one trouble with him was, that Mr. Ellsworth couldn't make hi

was scoutmaster and everything else. He began clutching me by the arm and saying, "I got it for k

u what you do Alf." (I wasn't going to be calling him Skinny,) I said, "You go and ask Vic Norris if he's got an awl or a small gimle

dle and asked me if it would do. I think he

o. Come ahead, and let

oing to r

e you better than an

I told him; "you can cut out the guys

nice and sunny and you could see the sun in the water. Over on shore, in St. George, I could hear a church bell and it sounded clear. There weren't many boats out, except sometimes the boats to Coney Island went by and we could hear the

out me, I'm always

window. I guess nobody noticed us; nobody said anything e

have dinner?" Honest, that fellow n

was on two barrels. I used it to open cans on and slice bread and all that. And I always washed it good and clean, you can bet. Oh, but i

other us here," I said,

, but

tmas best, because rich pe

elt awful s