“But you’re all right now, George, with the new engine aboard,” condoled Nick.
“Perhaps I am,” replied the skeptical George; “but the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. The new machine may go back on me yet.”
“But, my goodness! you’ve had it, going on three weeks, and in all that time she only shied once! What better do you want than that?” demanded Herb.
“Oh! well, you never can tell,” replied the skipper of the Wireless.
“Fact is, fellers,” Nick declared, “George has become so used to looking for sudden trouble to spring on him, that he can’t think of anything else. He’s all the time watching for a breakdown to happen.”
“Three weeks ought to satisfy him that his new engine is all to the good,” remarked Josh, “but seems like it don’t. Say, George makes me think of that Irishman who was always looking for trouble. He had been employed by the same railroad company forty-three years; but, getting too old for the work, he was let go. When some of his friends, seeing him look so doleful, took him to task, he shook his head and said, says he: ‘It’s not surprised at all I am; for ever since I began work here I’ve known it wouldn’t be a permanent job!’”
And so they laughed and joked as the time slipped away.
Of course they did not intend passing around to the delta of the mighty Mississippi, when there was a much more convenient way of reaching the Crescent City by passing through the straits called the Rigolets, and thus entering Lake Ponchartrain; from whence, by means of the canal, the city could be gained.
It was on New Year’s day, at about three in the afternoon, with a piping cold wind streaming down from the frozen North, that the little motor boat flotilla came to a last stop in a quiet boatyard near the great city on the river, which had seen the windup of a previous voyage of the club.
And, anxious as they were to hear from home, the six chums did not neglect to shake hands all around over the remarkably successful termination of their long and adventurous trip down the Eastern coast, and among the keys of Florida.