“I want to inquire into this drowning affair,” Steve said, “Didn’t you read about it in a little gilt-edged story-book?”
“Well, yes, I did,” George reluctantly acknowledged. “But, what of that?”
“Only this, were they all bad boys?”
“Come to think, they were.”
“That accounts for it then. They always put those solemn tales in books for little boys that get sick, and can’t get out doors, to make ’em think that a sound boy is always bad, and that it’s better to be sick. But somehow the superintendent always make a muddle of it, and give all those books to little girls. My little sisters have got a big cigar box chock-full of ’em, endwise up, and I never got one!”
“Yes, I know them; each nine chapters and a preface long,” said Charley.
“They’re the ones,” said Steve.
“What do your sisters do with them?” Will asked.
“Oh, they mostly build houses with ’em on rainy days,” Steve answered. “Now, we are not bad boys—never were. We are a first-rate crew, so let us go. But to please you, George, I’ll go and ask that sailor about the weather. I guess he ought to know, if anybody’s going to.”
Without loss of time, Steve went up to a sailor a little way off, and inquired, “Bill, what sort of weather are we going to have to-day?”