They all waited anxiously for the answer.
"Ess," was the childish answer. "What oo want? I goin' way off in boat. I goin' be Robbyson Tuso."
"Oh, Paul!" reproached his mother. But her voice showed relief.
They pushed open the side door of the boat house, which had been left unlocked that day—inadvertently, it seemed—as a man was doing some repairs to Betty's craft.
They saw Paul gravely seated in the boat, which he had managed to get into by means of a chair. He had a lantern with him, taken, it developed, from where Isaac, the furnace man, had left it for a moment in the Billette kitchen. And Paul was gravely playing that he was Robinson Crusoe, starting off on a voyage.
"Oh, Paul, how could you frighten mamma so?" asked Mollie, as she caught him up. "You should be punished!"
"Pichure in my book about Robbyson Tuso. He got in boat—I go in boat. Betty no care—does oo?"
"No, dear, not about my boat. But——"
"You were very, very naughty!" said Mollie, severely, "and sister doesn't love you any more. Naughty Paul!"
The sensitive lip of the toddler began pursing outward, quivering. His eyes filled with tears. Then catching sight of Grace, who, with the others, formed a circle about the recovered lost one, Paul smiled through the gathering mist of tears and asked: