They can throw mince pies at me for all I care," he added.

"If you want to be a scout I'll show you how and we can start a patrol maybe." [Illustration: Keekie Joe interviews Pee-wee] The word patrol seemed to suggest something ominous to Keekie Joe, for he glanced furtively up and down the alley, and then waved his hand reassuringly to the group in the middle of the field.
Pee-wee perceived now that the scene of the crap game had been selected with keen military wisdom, affording a safe avenue of precipitate retreat in any direction.

Disaster could have resulted only from a surrounding host.

Officer McMahon, the tyrant on this squalid beat, was large.

But he was not large enough to surround the camp.
The crap-shooters of Barrel Alley had been surprised in every nook and corner of their neighborhood until they had hit upon the bold expedient of playing in an open lot, reposing their trust in a sentinel.