They would whisper, "he looks just like his pictures in _Boys' Life_," and he would smile down on them and.

.

.
_Plunk_! The pioneer scout had collided with a man on the sidewalk and he returned to Bridgeboro with a suddenness that surprised even himself.
"Excuse me," he said.
"Certainly," said the man.
Pee-wee recovered his rock, and began kicking it along the sidewalk again.

"I'll show them," he said moodily.
He was about to ascend his scout throne again and engage in the gracious pastime of receiving delegations of common, ordinary scouts in his dim, wooded domain when he found himself at the edge of a region which was not in the least like the romantic wilderness of his vision.
This was Barrel Alley, the habitat of Jimmy Mattenburg and Sweet Caporal and the McNulty twins.
Barrel Alley was the slum neighborhood of Bridgeboro and it was not very large.

But it was large enough.