[CHAPTER V—THE HOUSEBOAT]
Ruth stole a quick glance at the face of her guardian. There was a silence between them for a moment, broken only by the purr of the powerful machine and the suction of the rubber tires on the street. Agnes, Dot and Tess were having a gay time behind the two figures on the front seat.
“A canal boat?” murmured Ruth, as if she had not heard aright.
“Perhaps I had better qualify that statement,” went on Mr. Howbridge in his courtroom voice, “by saying that it is, at present, Minerva, on the canal. And a boat on the canal is a canal boat, is it not? I ask for a ruling,” and he laughed as he slowed down to round a corner.
“I don’t know anything about your legal phraseology,” answered Ruth, entering into the bantering spirit of the occasion, “but I don’t see why a boat on the canal becomes a canal boat any more than a cottage pudding becomes a house. The pudding has no cottage in it any more than a club sandwich has a club in it and—”
“I am completely at your mercy,” Mr. Howbridge broke in with. “But, speaking seriously, this boat is on the canal, though strictly it is not a canal boat. You know what they are, I dare say?”
“I used to have to take Tess and Dot down to the towpath to let them watch them often enough when we first came here,” said Ruth, with a laugh. “They used to think canal boats were the most wonderful objects in the world.”
“Are we going on a canal boat?” asked Tess, overhearing some of the talk on the front seat. “Oh, are we?”
“Oh, I hope we are!” added Dot. “My Alice-doll just loves canal boats. And wouldn’t it be splendiferous, Tess, if we could have a little one all to ourselves and Scalawag or maybe Billy Bumps to pull it instead of a mule?”
“That would be a sight on the towpath!” cried Agnes. “But what is this about canal boats, Mr. Howbridge?”