So then I opened the Handbook to page 59, where there's a picture of
a scout standing straight, making the full salute, and I told him he
should stand straight and try to look just like that. He said, "I ain't
fat enough," but I told him not to mind, but just to look at that picture
and he'd know how he looked as a boy scout.

"How soon will I be one?" he said. And I told him pretty soon.

Now I thought about that picture early in the morning and I made up my
mind I would show it to him when he got dressed up. You can bet he
didn't look very much like it but a lot I cared about that, as long
as it made him feel good. So early in the morning before he came, I
took my two dollar bill (that's my allowance my father always gives
me Monday morning) and put it in the Handbook at page 59, so that I
could find the place all right.

After I showed the picture to Skinny I shut the Handbook because I
wouldn't need it any more and I laid the two dollar bill down on the
table in a hurry, because I wanted to straighten Skinny's belt and fix
his collar right and make him look as good as I could. Anyway I laid
an oar-lock on the bill so it wouldn't blow away. I've got two
nickel-plated oar-locks that my patrol gave me on troop birthday, and
I keep them in my tent except when I go to camp.

Westy was telling Skinny how fine he looked and, oh, gee, Skinny was
happy, you could see that. Of course, he didn't look very good, I have
to admit it, but he had a smile a mile long.

"You're all right," I told him, "all you have to do is to stand up
straight and think about scouting and the oath and the laws, and then
you'll look like one."

Then he said, "I have to have one of those axes, don't I?"

"You should worry about an axe," I said! "You didn't see one in the
picture did you?"

"Wasn't it because the boy in the picture was facing me, and you wear
the axe in back, don't you?"

"Don't you worry," I told him, "I know that fellow in the picture and
he hasn't got one on."

"One of your scout fellows says you have to have one," he said, kind
of timid.

"Good night!" I said to Westy, "Pee-wee's been at it."

"He knows, too," Skinny said.

"You mean that little fellow?" I said. "Has he been talking to you?"

"Yes," he said.

"Forget it," I told him! "If that kid had his picture taken he'd stand
with his back to the camera so as to show his belt-axe. If he had the
Gold Cross he'd pin it on the end of his nose so everybody'd see