“A good deal that you don’t understand; and, if you want to commit suicide, you had better keep on sailing a boat. You will finish the job one of these days. It is lucky this boat did not sink, like the other. If she had, some of you might have been drowned. As it is, we must get her up, and bail her out.”
“If you will tell us how, we will do all the work,” added Bolly.
By this time the four-oar boat came up. Corny Minkfield was acting as coxswain, in the absence of Dory. Dick Short was not in the boat, and Dave Windsor and John Brattle pulled the two after-oars.
“Where is Dick Short?” asked Dory.
“Mr. Brookbine would not let him come. He
said he must learn the lesson he lost while he was up a tree,” replied Corny. “We have got two greenhorns in the boat, and we can’t row worth a cent.”
“No need of telling of it, for any one could see it a mile off,” laughed Dory.
“Corny wants to do all the ordering while we do all the work,” added Dave Windsor. “When he is appointed boss we will mind him.”
“Just as you like. There is Captain Gildrock on the point watching us, and I don’t believe he will let any of you fellows out in a boat again till you learn how to handle one. But we must put the Monkey in shape, and take her up the river: Sim Green don’t want to lose another boat just yet.”
Dory fastened a line to the mast-head of the Monkey. As the boat had gone over on the port side, he moved the Goldwing to the opposite side. But pulling on this line would only move the boat in the water without righting her.