But hold on, I am getting ahead of my story. I was rummaging through the attic the other day, and came across an old battered trunk, one that I used when I went to boarding-school down in south Jersey. That trunk was certainly a curiosity shop. It contained a miscellaneous assortment of glass tubes, brass rods, coils of wire, tools, fish hooks--in fact, it was a typical collection of all those "valuables" that a boy is liable to pick up. Down in one corner of the trunk was a black walnut box, marked, with brass letters, "Property of the S. S. I. E. E. of W. C. I." On my key-ring I still carried the key to that box, which had not been opened for years. I unlocked the box and brought to light the "Records and Chronicles of the Society for the Scientific Investigation, Exploration and Exploitation of Willow Clump Island." For hours I pored over those pages, carried back to the good old times we used to have as boys along the banks of the Delaware River, until I was brought sharply back to the present by the sound of the dinner bell. It seemed that the matter contained in those "Chronicles" was too good to be kept locked up in an old trunk. Few boys' clubs ever had such a president as Bill, or such a wonderful bureau of information as Uncle Ed. For the benefit of boys and boykind in general, I decided then and there to publish, as fully as practicable, a record of what our society did.

Fig. 1. The Old Truck in the Attic.

Fig. 2. The Black Walnut Box.