Dick invited a number of his military academy chums to make the cruise with him, but he received several letters of regret, the lads stating that vacation plans, previously made by their parents, would not permit them to accept the young millionaire's hospitality. Paul Drew was to go and Captain Innis Beeby, the cadet commander of Company C, wrote that he might meet Dick in Savannah, Georgia, if the yacht would stop there on the way to Cuba.
"Of course, we'll stop for Beeby," said Dick to Paul Drew, who had arrived at Hamilton Corners a few days before the date set for the departure for New York.
"Yes, Beeby's good fun. We'll have a swell time on this trip, Dick."
"I hope so. I want the fellows to enjoy themselves."
Uncle Ezra paid another visit to Dick's house, though it must have cost him a pang to part with the money for a railroad ticket. He said he had come to make one more appeal to Dick's father, not to allow the youth to squander his fortune on a yacht.
"It's too late, Uncle Ezra," exclaimed Dick, gaily. "I've bought the yacht, and we shall sail in a few days."
"Well, of all the senseless, wasteful proceedings—But there, I'm done expostulating—I'm—I'm going to——"
But the churlish old man stopped short, and closed his thin lips like a steel trap. There was a dangerous, crafty look in his eyes, which boded Dick no good, but the young millionaire did not see it.
The night before the wealthy lad and his friends were to leave for the metropolis, there to go aboard the yacht, in company with Tim Muldoon, Dick found he had to go down-town to send some telegrams, one to Captain Barton and another to the lawyer, Mr. Blake. Paul Drew, who, with Frank Bender and Henry Darby, was at Dick's house, volunteered to accompany him, but our hero said he would run down with Grit, and hurry back, leaving his friends to amuse themselves.
It was rather a dark night, with a promise of a storm, and when the wealthy lad started out he wished that he had not gotten a puncture in his auto tire that day, so that he might have used the car. But he had not had the tube repaired, and the machine was out of commission.