"And it's just as well we started so early," Jack remarked, "because the wind is freshening all the while, and it will be blowing great guns out there before long.
"Hey, Josh! why not make a change again, and you get aboard the Comfort?" proposed Nick, who hated to give up a good thing.
"No you don't," retorted Josh, "not any for me. You just go and stew in your own gravy, will you? Took me a whole month to get the creak out of my bones after the last time you coaxed me to change places. Over you get, now, or else it's a ducking for yours, my boy," and Josh advanced in a warlike manner on the fat youth.
So, sighing like a martyr, Nick felt compelled to clamber into the speed boat.
"You ought to have one for your own sweet self," declared George, as he grasped the gunnel to keep from being tossed overboard, for Nick careened the boat dreadfully upon climbing in. "Why, you just don't know how fine the old Wireless acted on the way over, with only me aboard."
"I wish I did have a boat, as big as a house," declared Nick. "I'm wasting away to a mere shadow trying to keep my balance in this wedge. If I forget to breathe with both lungs at the same time he tells me I'm upsetting the equilibrium of the blessed thing. I feel most all the time like I'm the acrobat in the circus trying to stand on one toe on top of a flagpole."
After they had tied up, Herb was dispatched for the mail, while Jack went to buy a few provisions. Nick bombarded him with such a fearful list of things he wanted him to purchase that Jack had to thrust his fingers in his ears.
"What do you take me for, Nick, a dray horse?" he laughed. "I'd have to be, to carry the load you'd want. I've got a list of things we must have, and that's all I'll promise to lug down here. If you want anything else, you'll have to go after it yourself."
"All right, I'll do that," said Nick, promptly.
"Sure; and please tell me where you expect to stow all that truck?" demanded George, immediately, with a frown. "Not aboard the Wireless, I promise you, my boy. She's got all she can carry in hauling you around, without a sack of potatoes, a ham, and all that truck you mentioned. Hire a float, and perhaps we'll tow it behind us."