CHAPTER I.
MR. FIXIT.
“What do you suppose can be the matter with the pesky thing?”
The speaker, a freckled faced boy about eighteen years old looked up from where he was kneeling on the bottom of the boat in front of the engine.
“Search me,” his companion, a tall lanky boy of about the same age, who was sitting in the stern, replied. “Gas’s all right, spark’s all right, everything’s all right and still she won’t go. Can you beat it?”
“And I’ll bet I’ve cranked it enough to run her the length of the lake,” the first speaker declared, wiping the sweat from his face. “It’s the queerest thing. An automobile engine can have a dozen things the matter with it and still run but you can get one of these little dinky marine engines all in perfect order and then it’s ten to one she won’t more than give a kick or two.”
“Reckon that’s just because it’s a motor boat engine,” and the boy in the stern laughed.
“It’s all right to laugh, but suppose you come here and give her a few spins. Mebby it won’t seem quite so funny then.”
“Gladly, Sweet Cherub, and you just watch her go.”
The two boys exchanged places and the lanky one, kneeling in front of the refractory engine was soon spinning the fly wheel while the freckled faced boy sat back and grinned.
“There, she coughed six times. That beats your record by one.”