"Well, suit yourself about that. Of course, you want a good, seaworthy craft, but I shouldn't get one too large. If you do you'll have to engage a big crew to help navigate it; and again, while I have no wish to restrict you in the spending of your fortune, you will find yachting pretty expensive."
"Expensive! I should say it was, Mortimer!" exclaimed Mr. Larabee, coming into the dining-room at that moment. "Don't think of letting Richard have a yacht."
"We have already discussed that," said Mr. Hamilton, somewhat coldly, "and my mind is made up. Better have something to eat, Ezra."
"Well, I will have a bit of dry toast and a cup of weak tea. I don't believe that will give me the dyspepsia," and the butler tried to conceal a smile as he set before the crabbed old man the very frugal repast.
Dick and his father talked yachting from the beginning until the end of the meal, and Uncle Ezra Larabee was a silent, but objecting listener. Occasionally a crafty look came over his face, to be replaced by one of agony when Dick mentioned the spending of large sums of money. At length, Mr. Hamilton said:
"Well, my boy, I think the simplest way out of it would be for you to go to New York, and look around for yourself. Perhaps you may pick up a bargain in a steam yacht. You have my full permission to do as you think best, only, as I said, don't get too large a craft. Take a week for the task, and I think you'll get what you want."
"That's what I'll do, dad. I'll go to New York in a few days, and see what I can do."
"Perhaps your Uncle Ezra would like to go with you," went on Mr. Hamilton.
"Who, me?" exclaimed the old man, carefully picking up from the table-cloth some crumbs of toast and eating them. "No, Mortimer, I haven't any money to waste on trips to New York. Living is frightfully expensive there."