“I shall be very glad to go,” said Peter.
“Dat’s bully,” said Blunkers. Then he added anxiously: “Dere’s somethin’ else, too, since yer goin’. Ginerally some feller makes a speech. Yer wouldn’t want to do it dis time, would yer?”
“What do they talk about?”
“Just what dey—” Blunkers swallowed a word, nearly choking in so doing, and ended “please.”
“Yes. I shall be glad to talk, if you don’t mind my taking a dull subject?”
“Yer just talk what yer want. We’ll listen.”
After Peter had thought it over for a day, he went to Blunkers’s gin palace.
“Look here,” he said. “Would it be possible to hire one more barge, and take the children free? I’ll pay for the boat, and for the extra food, if they won’t be in the way.”
“I’m damned if yer do,” shouted Blunkers. “Yer don’t pay for nothinks, but der childers shall go, or my name ain’t Blunkers.”
And go they did, Blunkers making no secret of the fact that it was Peter’s idea. So every child who went, nearly wild with delight, felt that the sail, the sand, the sea, and the big feed, was all owed to Peter.