"Then, Jack, row us down near the house, if you don't mind," begged Nan. "I want to get these two fat twins ashore as soon as I can; Freddie especially, if he's going to almost fall overboard when I'm not looking."
"I'm not going to fall overboard!" cried the little fat fellow. "Can't I row, Jack?"
"Not now, Freddie. I'm in a hurry," answered the man, one of the workers from Mr. Bobbsey's lumberyard.
"But you told Bert, just now, that you had lots of time," insisted Freddie.
"Well—er—ahem—I haven't time to let you row, Freddie. Maybe I will some other day," and Jack looked at Bert and smiled, while he said to himself: "You've got to get up early in the morning to match a smart chap like him," meaning Freddie, of course.
A short time before, the Bobbsey twins had returned from the city of New York where they had spent a part of the winter. Now it was spring and would soon be summer, and, as the day was a fine, warm one, they had gone on a little picnic, taking their lunch with them and pretending to camp on one of the many islands in the lake. Now they were on their way home.
"Well, here you are, safe on shore!" announced Jack, as the twins called Mr. Henderson, the man whom their father had sent with them to manage the boat.
"Yes, and there goes Freddie—falling overboard!" cried Bert with a laugh, as his little fat brother stumbled over a coil of rope on the dock and tumbled down. "It's a good thing you didn't do that in the boat, little fat fireman."
"I didn't hurt myself, anyhow," said Freddie, as he got up. "Come on, Flossie, let's run home. I'm terrible hungry."
"So'm I," added his sister, who was as fat as he, and just the same size. The two smaller Bobbsey twins started on ahead, while Bert, after seeing that the boat was well tied, followed on more slowly with his sister Nan.