“Oh, yes, sir. Only, of course, if you could get the four-thirty it would be cheaper.”
“T. Tucker, I can do enough work in that hour to make up the difference!” Mr. Whitney’s eyes twinkled. “There are two kinds of economy, my boy, good and bad. When you lose twenty dollars to save one it’s bad. Five-thirty, then!”
Arnold was waiting at the town landing when the Urnove nosed up to it again, a good twenty minutes before nine. He was all excitement. “Say, Toby, what do you think? There was a man down here a bit ago asking about the ferry! He—he wanted to know what boat ran over there and I showed him the Frolic. He said he’d be back.”
Toby laughed. “That means we’ll have to run the Frolic then. He might not go if we asked him into this tub! Are you—do you think he will come back?”
“Yes, he said he was just going up to the store and would be back before nine. I tried to get him to stay, but he edged off.”
“Well, then we’ll tie this old lady up and use the Frolic. Got plenty of gas?”
“Full up! Gee, Toby, I hope he comes back!”
“So do I,” agreed Toby.
And he did! He came shuffling down the gangplank at five minutes to nine, carrying so many bundles that Toby wondered whether he ought to charge him freight! No one else appeared and the Frolic cast off and headed for Johnstown. The passenger seemed greatly delighted with the Frolic and the method of transportation, and vowed he was going to tell his neighbors about them. “I generally come over here a couple of times a month,” he explained. “I traded a horse last winter to Job Trasker, the feller that has the store up near the church, and I’m takin’ it out in groceries and things. I’m right pleased to get over and back this way, boys, because it used to take me most half the day to make the trip by train. I ain’t got any horse now, so I can’t drive over. Why, I had to get up close to five o’clock this mornin’ to get the early train and be back by ten!”
“The next time,” said Toby, “you could take the nine-thirty ferry from Johnstown and get the eleven o’clock back, I guess. You’d have more than an hour in Greenhaven.”