"Cheer up, old man!" Jack Bolling clapped Tom on the shoulder. "A houseboat is not the fastest vessel afloat. Who knows what kind of tug the girls have had to hire to get them here? And a woman is never on time, anyhow."
"We'll be in luck if the houseboat gets here by to-night, Curtis," argued Harry Sears, another member of the motor boat crew of five youths. "Do slow down; there is no use ploughing around these waters. We had better stay close to the meeting place. It's after twelve o'clock; can't we have a little feed?"
"Here, Brewster, stir around and get out the lunch hamper," ordered George Robinson. "We must all have something to sustain us while we wait for the girls."
David Brewster's face colored at the other's tone of command, but he went quietly to work to obey.
"David," interposed Tom Curtis, "come put your hand on this engine for me, won't you? I will dig in the larder if Robinson is too tired. I know where the stores are kept better than you other chaps do, anyhow."
"Tom Curtis is a splendid fellow," thought David gratefully. "Miss Morton was right. He doesn't treat one like a dog, just because he has plenty of money."
David Brewster and Tom Curtis had traveled down from New York to Virginia together. Their fellow motor boat passengers they had picked up at different points along the way. David had come to understand Tom Curtis pretty well during their trip—better than Tom did David. But then, Tom Curtis was a fine, frank young man with nothing to hide or to be ashamed of. David had many things which he did not wish the public to know.
The houseboat party had arranged to join one another in Richmond. From there they were to go by rail to a point up the Chesapeake Bay, where the "Merry Maid" had been kept in winter quarters since the houseboat trip of the fall before. A tug was to escort the houseboat to the mouth of the Rappahannock River, where they were to meet Tom and his motor launch.
Phyllis Alden had accompanied Madge to "Forest House," so the two girls and Eleanor were not far from Richmond. Miss Jenny Ann Jones and Lillian had come from Baltimore together. But Miss Betsey Taylor took her life in her own hands and traveled alone. She carried only the expenses of her railroad trip in her purse. But in a bag, which she wore securely fastened under her skirt, Miss Betsey had brought a sum of money large enough to last her during the entire houseboat trip, for when a maiden lady leaves her home to trust herself to a frisky party of young people, she should be prepared for any emergency. Miss Betsey also bore in her bag a number of pieces of old family jewelry, which she wore on state occasions.