“Thanks,” answered Dick. “And—and come and see us.”
“Yes, you must be neighborly,” added Harry. Billy nodded and waved his hand, and Dick, with a bit of a swagger, took up the handle and turned the wheel. The engine answered at once and the launch chugged off toward the lower end of the island.
“Isn’t he splendid?” asked Harry admiringly.
“Who do you mean?” asked Chub. “Dick?”
“No, Mr. Noon, of course.”
“Well, he was certainly Johnny-on-the-Spot to-day,” Chub replied. “He ought to be called the Licensed Engineer instead of the Licensed Poet. Say, Roy, do you believe all the yarns he tells?”
“About what?” asked Roy, drowning Harry’s indignant ejaculation.
“Why, about being a circus clown and playing in the band and being a dentist and running an engine in a pottery and—and all that. What do they want with an engine in a pottery, anyhow?”
“Well, I was never in a pottery, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t need an engine. As for the other things, why, you saw those pants of his; and if any one but a clown would wear them I miss my guess, Chub!”
“That’s so, but he can’t be more than thirty or so.”