“Surely,” replied the man of business, “but give Jack due credit. Lots of chaps would have taken a day or two off to rest, after going through all that. His hands were so sore at first that he could hardly hold the wheel. But instead of lying back and listening to congratulations, he got on the job while the rush lasted.”
“He certainly has worked hard this summer.”
“He has,” replied Mr. Farnham, thoughtfully, “and fellows with as much grit as that aren’t any too plenty. He ought to go a good long way in this world. But it won’t be as a ferryman.”
“It won’t?”
“No”; and Mr. Farnham smiled. “I have a notion that by the time he gets through High School he’ll be the sort of chap I shall find very useful in my office in New York. But there’s time enough to think about that.
“By the way,” he said to Jack, stepping down on to the landing as soon as the last of the passengers had gone, “I have just got a new dinghy in place of the one I’ve been using as a tender to the power-boat. I have no use for the old dinghy now, so if you’d like to hitch it up behind the Sea-Lark, you can have it as a tender.”
“Why—why,” began Jack, who knew the dinghy well enough, and would have liked nothing better than to own her, but felt that Mr. Farnham had given him quite enough as it was, “that would be splendid, only—”
“Wait a minute,” put in Mr. Farnham, quickly discerning what was in the lad’s mind. “I’m not going to make a gift of her to you, exactly. Let’s put the thing on a proper business footing, eh?”
Jack smiled. “I’d be glad to,” he said; “But how?”
“You can take her on condition that whenever I want to use your ferry during the rest of my vacation this year, I’m allowed to travel without paying my fare.”