And amid all this a small form, with clothing disarranged from close contact, but intent upon his purpose, squirmed and wriggled in and threw his little skinny arms around the hero's waist.
"Will you--will you take me out in it ?" he asked.

"Just once--will you ?" "The canoe ?" Hervey said.

"You'll have to ask my troop, Alf, old top; it belongs to them.

What would a happy-go-lucky nut like I am be doing, paddling around in a swell canoe like that ?" "Let me--let me see the badge," little Skinny insisted.
But already Hervey had handed the badge over to his troop.

Probably he thought that it would interfere with his climbing trees or perhaps fall off when he was hanging upside down from some treacherous limb or scrambling head foremost down some dizzy cliff.