"The room has a good bed, and every thing a fellow wants in it. The lock and the bars don't hurt me, but they will not be kept up a great while. I didn't expect to like it; but I do like it, and we are having plenty of fun every hour in the day."
"I don't want to cave in, but I like this thing as well as Kidd and Nim," added Pell Sankland.
"It is vacation now, and we are doing nothing but play with this steamer. What will you do when you are set down to your books, or made to shove a foreplane all the afternoon?" asked Tom, with the curl of disgust hanging about his lips still.
"What did we build the Thunderer for?" demanded Nim sharply.
"For fun, of course. We shouldn't have done it if it had been hard work."
"All the tools we had were a shingling-hatchet, a bucksaw, and a half-inch auger; and we worked for a week for the fun of it!" exclaimed Nim warmly. "Do you think there will be any less fun in working three or four hours in the afternoon with good tools, and machinery to help us?"
"It's no use to talk with you, Nim Splugger. You have sold out," replied Tom. "You want to be under Dory Dornwood's thumb; and you may do it if you like, I shall not."
"You will be under his thumb just as much as I am, whether you like it or not; and if you want to get licked into doing what you are told, like a contrary horse, you can do it if you like," answered Nim, as he turned on his heel, as his companion had done, and left the impracticable leader.
"Those fellows don't like to study their lessons any better than I do, and I guess they will have enough of it here," added Tom.
"We can all read, write, and cipher; and we don't have to study such things as we did at the town-school," replied Pell Sankland.