the town over there, Nelson?” Bob interrupted.
“Winthrop; and that’s Nahant ahead. You might head her in a bit more until Tommy gets his sea legs.”
Bob turned the wheel a mite and the launch’s bow swung further inshore.
“What time is it?” asked Dan.
“Just twelve,” answered Nelson, glancing at the clock.
“Well, what time do we feed?”
“About one, I suppose,” answered Nelson. “Who’s hungry?”
Dan groaned. “I, for one. I could eat nails.”
“Same here,” said Bob. “Tommy, you get busy, like a good little cookie, and fry a few thousand eggs.”
“And make some coffee,” added Dan.
“All right,” Tom replied. “Only there’s a lot of canned baked beans down there. What’s the matter with those?”
“Search me,” said Dan. “Suppose you heat some up and we’ll find out. Beans sound better than eggs to yours truly.”
“I suppose that, as Tom’s the cook, he had better give us what he thinks best,” said Nelson.
“Maybe,” Dan replied, “only it gives him a terrible power over the rest of us. If he should get a grouch, we might have nothing but pilot bread and water.”
“You’ll have to be good to me,” said Tom with a grin as he started down the steps to the engine room.
“Oh, we will be,” answered Dan earnestly; and to give weight to his words he aided Tom’s descent with a gentle but well-placed kick.
“You get short rations for that,” sung out the cook from below.
“If I do, I’ll go down there and eat up the ice box!”
“Say, Nelson,” sang out Bob, “what about that sloop over there? It looks as though she was trying to cross. Who has the right of way?”
“She has. Keep astern of her,” answered Nelson.
“Say!” came a disgusted voice from below. “We haven’t any can opener!”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Nelson. “Is that so? Have you looked among the knives?”
“Looked everywhere,” answered Tom, “except up on deck.”
“Use your teeth, Tommy,” suggested Dan.
“Let the beans go, and fry some eggs,” called Bob.
“Use the potato knife,” said Nelson, “and we’ll get a new one when we go shopping.”
“All right,” answered Tom. “If I bust it – there!”
“Did you?” laughed Dan.
“Short off! Say, Bob, lend me your knife a minute, will you?”
A howl of laughter arose, and Tom’s flushed face appeared at the companion way.
“Well, I’ve got to get the lid off somehow, haven’t I?” he asked with a grin.
“Not necessarily with my new knife,” answered Bob.
“I’ll tell you a way you can do it,” said Dan soberly, and Tom, looking suspicious, asked how.
“Why, you set the can on the stove and get it good and hot all through, and just as soon as it begins to boil hard the lid comes off.”
“Huh! And everything else, I guess,” said Tom.
“And we spend the rest of the cruise picking Boston baked beans off the cabin walls,” supplemented Nelson. “No explosions for me, if you please. I don’t see why we should bother ourselves about the can, anyhow; it’s the cook’s funeral.”
“Well, it’s your luncheon,” Tom replied.
“It’s a job for the ship’s carpenter,” said Bob. “Call the carpenter.”
“I guess I’m it,” said Dan. “Come on, Tommy, and we’ll get the old thing open.”
They disappeared together and for a minute or two the sound of merry laughter floated up from below, and the two on deck smiled in sympathy. Then there was a loud and triumphant chorus of “Ah-h-h!” and Dan emerged.
“I want to try steering,” he announced. “Get out of there, Bob.”
“All right, but don’t get gay,” was the response. Dan tried to wither Bob with a glance as he took his place at the wheel. Then —
“Gosh! Don’t she turn easy? Who-oa! Come back here, Mr. Vagabond! Say, Nel, how much does a tub like this cost?”
“Thirty-four hundred, this one. But there’s been a lot of extras since then.”
“Honest? Say, that’s a whole lot, isn’t it? I suppose you could get one cheaper if you didn’t have so much foolish mahogany and so many velvet cushions, eh?”
“Maybe. You thinking of buying a launch?”
“I’d like to. I’m dead stuck on this one, all right. A sailor’s life for me, fellows!” And Dan tried to do a few steps of the hornpipe without letting go of the wheel. Nelson, laughing, disappeared to look after the engine, and with him, when he reappeared, came an appetizing odor of cooking.
“Tommy’s laying the tablecloth,” he announced. “When grub’s ready, you fellows go down and I’ll take a turn at the wheel.”
“Get out!” said Dan. “I’m helmsman or steersman, or whatever you call it. You run along and eat; I’m not hungry yet.”
“How about it, Bob?” asked Nelson. Bob looked doubtful.
“I’m afraid he’ll run us against the rocks over there just for a joke.”
“Honest, I won’t,” exclaimed Dan earnestly. “If I see a rock coming, I’ll call you.”
“All right,” laughed Nelson. “See that you do.”
At that moment there came eight silvery chimes from the clock in the engine room.
“‘Sixteen bells on the Waterbury watch! Yo-ho, my lads, yo-ho!’” sang Dan. “Say, what time is that, anyhow?”
“Twelve,” answered Bob.
“Twelve! Well, that’s the craziest way of telling time I ever heard of! What’s it do when it gets to be one?”
“Strikes two bells.”
“Yes, indeed! Isn’t it simple?” asked Dan sarcastically.
“When you get the hang of it,” Nelson answered. “All you have to do is to remember that it’s eight bells at twelve, four and eight. Then one bell is half-past,
