“What do you mean?” asked Roy, anxiously. “Go monkeying around here among all these ferry-boats and things?”
But Dick explained that his idea was to keep the boat tied up. So they looked to their two lines which ran from bow and stern and Dick slipped into the engine-room. Presently there was a mild commotion at the stern of the boat which gradually increased as Dick advanced the spark. The lines tightened, but held, and Roy and Chub joined the engineer.
“How does she go?” asked Chub.
“All right,” Dick answered, cheerfully. The engine was chugging away busily and Dick was moving about it with his oil-can. “I didn’t have any trouble starting it. I don’t believe Mr. Cole knows much about engines.” There was a tone of superiority in Dick’s voice that caused the others to smile, recalling, as they did, his own vast ignorance of the subject less than a year ago. The summer before Dick had purchased a small launch and what he now knew of gas engines had been learned in the short space of a few months’ experience chugging about Ferry Hill in the Pup.
“Oh, Mr. Cole always said he didn’t under-
