"I couldn't pin it on there very well, could I?" Tom said, lured by his
companion's eagerness into a little show of amusement.
"Where is it?" Hervey demanded.
"I'm letting a girl wear it," Tom said.
"Oh, what I know about _you!_" Hervey said, teasingly. "You can bet if I
ever get the Gold Cross or the Eagle Badge (which I won't this trip) no
girl will ever wear them."
"You can't be so sure about that," said Tom, out of his larger worldly
experience, "sometimes they take them away from you."
"You're a funny fellow," Hervey said, while his gaze still expressed his
generous impulse of hero-worship. "I guess I seem like just a sort of
kid to you with my twenty merits--twenty and two-thirds. Maybe some girl
is wearing your Distinguished Service Cross, for all I know. But we
fellows are crazy to have the Eagle award in our troop. I suppose of
course you're an Eagle Scout?"
"I guess that was about three or four years ago," Tom said.
"Once a scout, always a scout, hey?"
"That's it," Tom said.
They strolled along in silence for a few minutes, Hervey occasionally
stealing a side glimpse at his elder, who ambled on, apparently
unconscious of these admiring glances. Now and again Tom paused to
examine a patch of moss or some little tell-tale mark upon the ground,
as if he had no knowledge of his companion's presence. But Hervey
appeared quite satisfied.
"I'll tell you how it is," he finally said, selecting what seemed an
appropriate moment to speak; "I was elected as the one in our troop to
go after the Eagle award.
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