CHAPTER I. “THE BEST THING YOU EVER HEARD OF.” It was the month of October, and yet for the boys who belonged to the school of Mr. Wallace, in Boontown, the summer vacation was not yet over. Mr. Wallace had been taken sick, and although he was now recovering, it was not expected that he would be able to resume the labors of his school until about the middle of November. Everybody liked Mr. Wallace, and very few of his patrons wished to enter their boys at another school when it was expected he would certainly re-open his establishment in the course of the fall. Most of his scholars, therefore, were pursuing their studies at home, according to methods which he recommended, and this plan was generally considered far more satisfactory than for the boys to go for a short time to other schools, where the systems of study were probably very different from those of Mr. Wallace. It is true that some of the boys did not study very much during this extension of the vacation, but then it must be remembered that those who expect boys to do always everything that is right are very apt to be disappointed. Philip Berkeley, who lived with his uncle, Mr. Godfrey Berkeley, at Hyson Hall, on the banks of one of Pennsylvania’s most beautiful rivers, had studied a good deal since the time when his vacation should have ended, for he was a boy naturally inclined to that sort of thing, and he had, besides, the example of his uncle--who was hard at work studying law--continually before his eyes. But his two most particular friends, Chapman Webster and Phineas Poole, did not subject their school-books to any great amount of wear and tear. Chap Webster was a lively, energetic boy, always ready to engage in some enterprise of work or play; and Phineas, generally called Phœnix by his companions, was such a useful fellow on his father’s farm that he was usually kept pretty busy at one thing or another whenever he was at home. At the time our story begins, Chap Webster had, for a week, been living in what he considered the most delightful kind of clover. He was a great lover of the water, although he had no particular desire for a mariner’s life, in the ordinary sense of the term. Accustomed since a child to the broad waters of the river, he had a great fancy for what might be called the inland marine service, and his highest ambition was to be captain of a tug-boat. To course up and down the river in one of these swift and powerful little vessels, and to make fast to a great ship ever and ever so much larger than the “tug,” and to tow her along against wind and tide, appeared to Chap a most delightful thing to do. There was a sense of power in it which pleased him. He was now paying a visit to a relative in the city, who was one of the officers of a tug-boat company, and this gave Chap an opportunity to take frequent trips on his favorite vessels. He enjoyed all this so much that I fear he was in no hurry for his school to begin.