"Course I have!" spluttered the dangling Nick, ever ready to take up cudgels with this adversary, no matter what his condition. "Course I have," he repeated. "Think me crazy to sail in this cranky message boat without insurance against a spill? I guess not. And you see what a wise head Nick has, fellows! Why, hang it, I'd just about been drowned this time if it hadn't been for this hunky-dory life preserver!"
"That's so," said Jack, warmly. "And you're a wise boy, all right, Buster. Just as long as you ride in that speed machine you keep close to that cork affair. You never know when you'll need it."
"That's so," grunted Nick, as he ejected a quart or so of water which had gotten into his mouth and stomach. "Ugh! get me aboard, please. I feel wet!"
"Glory! hear that, would ye?" roared Jimmie. "Sure he looks it, too, by the same token. But it will nade the hull caboodle of us to lift Buster aboard, for what wid all the wather he's gulped down he must weigh a ton, so he do."
"Say, he certainly changed his mind, and concluded that the walking was good, after all!" exclaimed Herb, as he lent a hand toward raising the young elephant.
"Yes," remarked George, who had really been badly frightened, but now tried to hide his feelings by a little joshing, "and I don't think it's a bit fair for your own crew to mutiny that way, and turn against the skipper."
"What's that?" gasped Nick, half way over the side; "who mutinied?"
"Why, the evidence is all against you, Hippo," returned his boatmate. "Didn't you see him, boys, holding on to a rope, and trying his level best to keep the dandy little Wireless from getting too great a start? I'm going to offer that as a protest if I miss getting the silver Dixie cup."
"Huh!"
That was all Nick could get out, for just then with a grand heave all around his comrades managed to raise him over the gunwale of the speed launch, so that he came down on the after deck with a squash, streams of water running off his saturated garments.