Once more they pulled up beside the slip of the Riverview Yacht Club and once more Big Joe stole silently up the lawn in the gray morning shadows. Skippy waited patiently, albeit anxiously, and held the boat secure while his weary eyes blinked sleepily in the sultry air.
After a time, Big Joe came hurrying out of the shadows.
“Simple as sayin’ meow, kid,” he said exultantly. “The boat tender tells me this guy’s goin’ alone to Snug Island this mornin’. He couldn’t be rememberin’ the guy’s name what owns her, but he says the boat ain’t a week old. She’s a peach—a trim, twenty-six footer, kid! And of all names she’s got! Sufferin’ swordfish!”
“What?”
“The Davy Jones—so ’tis. Can ye be beatin’ that?”
“Big Joe!” Skippy said in a small, frightened voice. “That’s a name that scares me terrible.”
“Ye’re crazy, kid, ye’re crazy! Sure and what’s in a name. Just ’cause Davy Jones happens to mean....”
“Just the same I’m scared terrible,” Skippy maintained stoutly. “An’ there’s lots in names whether you believe it or not. Now take the Minnie M. Baxter—nothin’ bad could come of her in the end, I bet, and if it did I bet it would be for the best, because it was my mother’s name. Even if there’s been trouble about the barge from the beginnin’ there’s good come on it too. When Pop was taken away, then you came to be good to me so that shows there’s somethin’ good about the barge, don’t it? But Davy Jones only means one thing, Big Joe, an’ you can say, what’s in a name!”
What, indeed!