"Well, let him go," replied Reese. "He has been a bother ever since he came."
With what joy Bart's small legs wriggled over the side of the keeper's dory!
"This little fellow, in whom I am interested, wants to go, if you will let him," said Dave to the light-keeper; "and he can go to Shipton with the party expecting to come down, you know, to visit us."
"All right; and tumble in yourself, Dave."
"Here I am!" replied Dave. "Let me push off!"
Toby Tolman's boat was quickly rising and falling with the sea that rocked about the Nub, and the departure was watched in an amazed, ignoble silence by the three rowdies leaning against Dick's boat.
"I am so much obliged to you for coming," said Dave to the keeper, "though I did not mean to trouble you. Things were rather squally at the Nub, and you came just in time. I will tell you about it."
When Dave had given his story, the light-keeper, resting on his oars, exclaimed, "There! I guessed as much. I didn't feel easy about you. That Dick is a well-meaning boy, I don't doubt; but when I found out that Sam Whittles was with him, I guessed what kind of a camp they would have at the Nub, and it seems my guess was about right.--And this little lamb?"
Bart's eyes brightened at this pitying title; the appellatives bestowed upon him had generally been of a different nature.
It was a happy party that went into the lighthouse after the trip from the Nub.