"I don't see what objections you can have to his company. He always goes with me."
"I suppose you think more of him than you do of your relations; but I'm going with you, at any rate."
And he quickened his pace to overtake Frank.
While his cousin was hoisting the sails, James deliberately seated himself in the stern of the boat, and took hold of the tiller.
"Do you understand managing a sail-boat?" inquired Frank, as he stood ready to cast off the painter.
"If any one else had asked me that question," answered James, with an air of injured dignity, "I should have considered it an insult. Of course I do."
"All right, then," said Frank, as he pushed the boat from the wharf. "Go ahead. We shall be obliged to tack a good many times, going down but we can sail back like a book, and—"
"Oh, you teach your grandmother, will you?" interrupted James. "I've sailed more boats than you ever saw."
Frank, at first, did not doubt the truth of this assertion, for James lived in a seaport town, and had had ample opportunity to learn how to manage a yacht; but they had not made twenty feet from the wharf, when he made up his mind that his cousin had never before attempted to act as skipper.
Instead of keeping as close as possible to the wind, as he should have done, he turned the boat's head first one way and then another, and, of course, made no headway at all.