"Good!" exclaimed the chief heartily.
"That's what I like to hear. But It's as certain as guns is, and nothing more certain than them, that some one was smoking in your boat-house, and set fire to it. And I wish we could find out who it was."
"So do I!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "If only to teach them a lesson on how dangerous it is to be careless. Well, I suppose we can't do anything more," and he sighed, for half the beautiful boathouse was in ruins.
Mr. Bobbsey and Bert were soon at home, telling the news to the folks. Freddie's eyes opened wide in surprise as he listened to the account of how the firemen had put out the fire.
"Oh, I wish I could have been there!" he cried. "I could have helped."
"What caused the fire?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, when the children had gone to bed again.
"Some boys—or some one else smoking cigarettes, the chief thinks.
We found a half-emptied box."
In her room Nan heard the word "cigarettes" and she wondered if her brother could be at fault, for she remembered he had told her how once some boys had asked him to go off in secret and smoke.
Mr. Bobbsey was up early, for he wanted to see by daylight what damage the fire had done, and he also wanted to see the insurance company about the loss. The beautiful boat-house looked worse in the daylight than it had at night, and the neat living room, where some of the Bobbseys had spent many happy hours, while others of them were out in the boats, was in ruins.
The fire chief came down while Mr. Bobbsey was there, and they talked matters over. The chief said he would send one of his men around to the different stores that sold cigarettes, to try and learn if boys had purchased any that afternoon, for it was against the law to sell cigarettes to anyone under sixteen years of age.