Tommy eyed Buster quizzically.
"Yeth, but thith ithn't the real thea. You will be singing inthide inthtead of outthide when we get out on the real othean. It won't be the gul-lor-iouth then."
"All we need now to make us a real ship is a wireless machine," said Harriet, with apparent innocence.
The skipper shot a quick look at her from under his heavy red eyebrows, but Harriet's face was guileless.
"Would it not be possible to put a wireless outfit on a boat of this kind, Captain?"
"Yes, if you wanted to. But what good would it do you?"
"I don't know, except that we might talk with ships far out at sea—ships that we could not see at all. Why don't you put a wireless machine on your little ship? I think that would be fine," persisted the Meadow-Brook girl, with feigned enthusiasm. The skipper growled an unintelligible reply and devoted himself to sailing his boat. Then Tommy took up the subject, discussing wireless telegraphy with great confidence, but in an unscientific manner that would have brought groans of anguish from one familiar with the subject.
Harriet Burrell through all of this conversation had been watching the skipper without appearing to do so. That he was ill at ease she saw by the scowl that wrinkled his forehead, but otherwise there was no sign to indicate that their talk had disturbed him.
They sailed for two hours, then the sloop returned to the bay, where most of the girls were put ashore and another lot taken aboard. The Meadow-Brook Girls and Mrs. Livingston remained on board. Harriet, during the time the captain was engaged in assisting his passengers over the side, where they were rowed ashore by Jane and Hazel, looked over the "Sister Sue" with more care than she had done before. There was nothing that she could discover that looked like a wireless apparatus. However, at the forward end of the cabin she discovered a small door let into the paneling. This door was locked. She asked the captain to what it opened.
"That's the chain locker, where we stow things," he answered gruffly.