“You’re improving, Ned,” remarked Jeer, critically. “In time you’ll be able to go out in polite society.”
“Oh, is that so’?” remarked Ned, sarcastically, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” retorted Jerry, bowing low.
“Oh, stow that away for use at some future time,” advised Bob. “Come on, if we’re going out in a boat.”
There was a little wharf, at which the Seaburys kept a couple of rowboats, and, as six were too many to go into one craft, Nellie and Jerry occupied the smaller, while Bob and Ned, Olivia and Rose, got into the other.
“Where shall we go?” asked Ned.
“Oh, row around anywhere,” replied Jerry. “We’ll have to get used to oars, we haven’t handled ’em in quite a while.”
The boys soon found that the skill with which they had formerly used the ashen blades, before the era of their motor boat, was coming back to them, and they sent the skiffs around the bay at fairly good speed, the two crafts keeping close together.
“This is something like work,” announced Jerry, as he rested on his oars, and let the boat drift with the tide, which was running in.
“That’s what it is,” declared Ned. “I wish—”