“Hello, boys!” he cried, striding toward them. “I’m glad I found you here. I want to tell you the best thing you ever heard of! I’m going down to the Breakwater to-morrow on a tug-boat, and you two can go along if your folks will let you. I’ve fixed the whole thing up right. We’ll be gone two days and a night. And I tell you what it is, boys, it will be more than glorious! We’re going down after a big steamer, that’s broken her propeller-blades and has to be towed up to the city. I came up to tell you fellows, and see what my people said about it. But I know they’ll agree, and I don’t want you to let your folks put in any objections. It’ll be just as safe as staying at home, and there’s entirely too much fun in it for any of us to miss it.”
Neither Phil nor Phœnix hesitated for an instant in agreeing that Chap’s idea was a splendid one.
Mr. Berkeley, Phil’s uncle, when the subject was laid before him about an hour afterward, gave a hearty approval to the plan, for he was very glad that Phil should have an opportunity to enjoy an excursion of the kind.
His summer vacation had been filled up much more with work and responsibility than with recreation, and his uncle considered that a trip of some kind was certainly his due.
But the matter did not appear in the same light in the eyes of Mr. Poole. Now that Phœnix was not going to school, he thought it the boy’s duty to make himself useful about the house and farm, and there were a great many things he wanted him to do.
When Phœnix came over to Hyson Hall early the next morning, and told Phil he didn’t believe his father intended to let him go on this jolly old trip, Mr. Berkeley ordered his horse, Jouncer, to be saddled, and rode over to the Poole farm.
When he came back, he found Chap Webster with the other boys, and a noisy indignation meeting going on. He put a speedy stop to the proceedings, by informing the members of the small assemblage that Mr. Poole had consented to let Phœnix join the tug-boat party.
This news was received with a unanimous shout, and the boys separated to get ready as quickly as possible for the expedition, for they were to start for the city on the noon train.
“Take your heavy overcoats with you,” said Mr. Berkeley, as Chap and Phœnix were bidding him a hasty good-by; “for it may be cold on the water at night, and you had better each take a change of linen with you, and some underclothes.”
“What!” cried Phil; “for a little trip like this?”