“It’ll have to be tomato catsup, I guess,” laughed Dick. “That’s about all we’ve got.”
“I refuse to have the catsup wasted,” said Chub. “Besides, it would be terribly messy. We’ll find an empty bottle and fill it with water. They christen lots of boats with water nowadays.”
So after dinner the ceremony took place. They rowed out to the launch in the skiff, Harry tightly clasping a bottle of river water. They had found the bottle on the beach. The lettering on one side proclaimed the fact that it had at one time been filled with “Brainard’s Lucky Discovery for Coughs and Colds.” When they had all climbed aboard the launch Chub had an idea.
“Look here,” he exclaimed, “we’re not doing this right. She ought to be christened with gasolene!”
“Of course!” cried the others in chorus. So the water was poured out and the bottle was held under the carbureter and filled with gasolene. Then Roy and Dick and Chub grouped themselves as imposingly as possible on the small space of deck at the bow, maintaining their precarious positions by holding onto each other, and Harry re-embarked in the rowboat, working it around to the bow of the launch.
“The band will now play,” said Chub. “Tum, tumty, tum; Tum, tumty, tum; Tum—”
“That’s the wedding march, you idiot,” laughed Roy. So Chub struck up “Hail, Columbia” instead.
“Now,” he said, “we will listen to an address by the Honorable Roy Porter. Hear! Hear!” And he clapped his hands so strenuously that he very nearly precipitated the entire company into the water. The Honorable Roy Porter not being inclined to fulfil his portion of the program, Commodore Dickums Somes was called upon.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Dick. “We are met here on a memorable occasion, one which—which will long live in the—in the—”
“Memories of those present,” prompted Chub.