“Not you. I want a mate as has got some pluck in him. You’d be afraid to be out all night on the water.”
“No, I shouldn’t. I should like it.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Bob dubiously. “I might take you, and I mightn’t. You ain’t quite the sort of a chap I should want; and, besides, you’ve got to stay where you are and learn lessons. Ho! ho! ho! what a game, to be obliged to stop indoors every day and learn lessons! I wonder you ain’t ashamed of it.”
Dexter’s cheeks flushed, and he looked angrily across the river with his fists clenched, but he said nothing.
“You wouldn’t do. You ain’t strong enough,” said Bob at last.
“I’m as strong as you are.”
“But you daren’t come.”
“I should like to come, but I don’t think they’d let me.”
“Why, of course they wouldn’t, stoopid. You’d have to come away some night quietly, and get in the boat, and then we’d let her float down the river, and row right away till morning, and then we could set the sail, and go just wherever we liked, because we should be our own masters.”
“Here’s some one coming after you,” said Bob, in a low voice; and he shrank away, leaving Dexter perched up in the crown of the tree, where he stopped without speaking, as he saw Helen come down the garden, and she walked close by him without raising her eyes, and passed on.