Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the WaterBarbour, Ralph Henry
General
Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water
Barbour, Ralph Henry
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Friendship -- Juvenile fiction
“That would be a wild-goose chase for sure,” said Dan. “No, I guess
we’ve done our duty by Spencer. After all, I dare say he will be able to
put up with the captain for another voyage, although I’d hate to have to
do it myself, and that’s a fact.”
“Maybe Spencer will manage to slip away again,” said Bob. “Let’s hope
so, anyway.”
“You bet! Poor little cuss!” muttered Dan.
Spencer’s fate continued the subject for discussion all the rest of the
day, but, as Dan had said, their duty in the affair seemed to have ended
and it was decided that the next day, as soon as they could do so, they
would continue on to Newport for their mail and then to New York.
They went for a long walk before supper-time, visiting the lighthouse
and a life-saving station, and returning at six o’clock very hungry, so
hungry, in fact, that the possibilities of the _Vagabond’s_ larder
seemed quite inadequate to the demands of the occasion. So they returned
to the hotel in the village and fared very well indeed. After supper
they adjourned to the writing room and levied on the hotel stationery.
Everyone found plenty to write home about and for half an hour the pens
scratched diligently. It was Tom whose ideas were exhausted first. After
addressing and sealing his letter and thumping a stamp on to the corner
of the envelope he picked up a newspaper and tilted himself back in his
chair under the light. Two minutes later the front legs of the chair hit
the floor with a crash.
“The _Sue_ won!” cried Tom.
The others frowned but failed to look up from their letters.
“I say, you chaps!” called Tom more loudly. “The _Sue_ won!”
“For gracious sake, Tommy,” protested Bob, “shut up! How do you think
we’re going to write letters when——”
“Oh, go ahead and write your old letters,” grumbled Tom. “I thought
you’d want to know how it came out, that’s all.”
“What’s he talking about, Bob?” Dan asked.
“I’m telling you that the _Sue_ won,” answered Tom with dignity.
“Won what?”
“The race, you idiot!”
“Sue who? What race?”
“Who’s being sued, Tommy?” asked Nelson, looking up from his sixth sheet
of paper. Tom looked about him despairingly.
“Say, you lunatics,” he exclaimed after an eloquent silence, “stop
gibbering a moment, will you? I’m trying to tell you that the _Sue_——”
“Oh, Sioux!” said Nelson, turning back to the letter. “I thought you
were talking about some one suing some one. Anyone scalped yet? I’d like
to live out your way and see some of these Indian uprisings, Tommy. Are
there any Sioux in Chicago?”
“There are plenty of Indians there,” laughed Dan, “but maybe they’re not
Sioux.”
Tom passed the insult disdainfully and retired behind his paper with
insulted dignity.
“Anyhow, she won,” he muttered defiantly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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