"What is it? Vera Cruz—?" asked Mrs. Morton and Ethel Blue, whose thoughts always were with the Navy and Army.
"Nothing to do with Vera Cruz," Roger reassured them. "This event is much nearer home. It isn't any farther away from home than from here to the steamboat dock."
"What is it, Roger?" demanded Helen. "You're so tantalizing!"
"Oh, for the white wings, sailing, sailing," sang Roger, advancing gracefully with outstretched arms and retreating abruptly as Dicky made a rush at him, head down like a young goat.
"Are you going to sail in the Humbug again?"
"Has she won another race?"
"Come, birdie, birdie, perch on this twig," cooed Ethel Brown with a gesture toward the piazza rail, "and tell us all about it."
Roger responded to this appeal, especially as it was re-enforced by the bait of a fresh cooky, held out invitingly.
"Ladies," he began impressively, as he roosted on the offered rail and took a generous bite out of the cooky.
"Just an instant, Roger, until that cooky disappears," begged his mother with upraised hand.