"Well, I've got a new camera, and I want to get some good views—that's all."
"Oh, I fancy you'll have all the chance you want. But if you've got a camera, why didn't you say so before? You can take some pictures here on board. I meant to bring one, but I forgot it. Bring out yours and snap some of us."
Which the fat cadet did, posing Dick and his chums in all sorts of attitudes, more or less nautical. The crew, too, came in for their share of pictures, and they were snapped collectively and individually, doing all sorts of things, from clambering up the shrouds to swabbing down the decks. Then Captain Barton had to pose as he was taking a noon observation, while Dick was taken in so many different styles that finally he rebelled, when he was requested by Beeby to don a ragged suit, and stand in the bows, with his hand shading his eyes, to represent a shipwrecked mariner looking anxiously for a sail.
But it was jolly fun, making snapshots, and even Grit and Gritty had to pose, while Hans, the cook was so delighted with the result of his snapshot, that he would have stood on his head for Beeby. For the cadet developed and finished the pictures on board, improvising a dark room from a closet.
Down the coast went the yacht, past St. Augustine, Jupiter Inlet and other places on the Florida coast, and it seemed as if the cruise would be run off without serious incident, for they were nearing Cuba. But, one day, when in sight of the Bemini Keys, a group of little islands about sixty miles off Miami, Jim Carter, the chief engineer, hurried on deck to report to Dick and Captain Barton a break in the machinery.
"Is it serious?" asked the young millionaire, fearing for his fine yacht.
"No, only it will mean a delay of a day or so. My men can repair it."
"And will we have to lie-to all that while?" Dick wanted to know.
"We can use the sails, though we'll not make much speed," put in the commander.
"Oh, well, time is no object," remarked Dick, with an air of relief, and then, to the no small delight of the boys, the steamer became a sailing yacht, and they learned many new points in seamanship.