you) till you've passed your first class tests. But anybody can try for the silver cup, and you can bet it's a big honor for any troop or patrol to have that. Most always they have the contest on Labor Day.
I said, "Alf, you can bet I'd be glad to see you win that cup, but don't forget that there are more than a hundred fellows at the camp. Some of the troops come from the seashore—you know that, and they're all crackerjack swimmers. It comes mighty hard to be disappointed, so don't you stay awake at night thinking about it." I said that because I could just see that poor kid dreaming about handing that cup over to his patrol leader, and honestly, I didn't think there was much chance for him.
Pretty soon Bert Winton leaned over and said to me, "Do you suppose that's true about his father?"
"Guess so," I told him.
"He doesn't seem to be very much ashamed of it," he said.
All I could say was, "He's a queer kid; he's all the time blurting out things like that."
"Maybe it's because he's just plain honest," Winton said.
