“Well,” said Frank with a melancholy smile. “What do you make of it, Ben?”
“What did that there poor fellow that’s drownded say to you he done with Pork Chops?” was the irrelevant reply.
“Oh, he said that they had put him ashore early to-day,” replied Frank. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”
“Might have a good deal,” replied Ben. “I wonder where that black lubber is. He’ll have fifty-seven varieties of fits when he finds his boat’s gone—worse’n the skipper’s cat that lost all his nine lives at once when the shop’s rats gave out.”
“He can easily replace that rickety old sloop,” said Harry irritably; “to restore what we have lost will take months of work and more money than we can get.”
“If we can even get back to New York from this moonshining island we’ll be lucky,” grumbled Lathrop.
“Oh, don’t rub it in,” muttered Billy.
It was very plain that all the young adventurers were overwrought. More for the sake of creating a diversion than anything else, Ben said:
“Wonder what’s become of that floating pumpkin-seed the Squeegee?”
“Washed away, I suppose,” said Frank in an uninterested tone. The loss of the ungraceful Squeegee didn’t interest him much at that moment.