“I’ll come over and help you,” said Bee.
“You’ll stay away from her!” exclaimed his chum with energy. “If it hadn’t been for you she’d have been all right.”
“Hear him!” Bee scoffed, appealing to Aunt Mercy. “Why, that silly chug-chug didn’t know the first thing about going until I worked and toiled over her! Of all ungrateful brutes, Hal, you’re the—the limit!”
“I’d have learned how to run her myself,” said Hal amidst the laughter of the rest, “if you hadn’t been so keen on starting out. I wanted to have someone show me about the thing, Jack, but this idiot couldn’t wait. Say, what do you think he wants to do?”
Jack shook his head. “Drown himself, I guess.”
“He wants to go out to Hog Island and hunt for buried treasure!”
Jack laughed, and even Aunt Mercy smiled at the idea, but Faith came to Bee’s defence. “I think that would be lovely,” she approved. “I read a book once—”
“There isn’t anything on Hog Island, I guess,” said Jack, “but rocks and seagulls. You’d better try somewhere else, Mansfield.”
Bee shrugged his shoulders, undisturbed. “I’m not particular about where it is, Herrick. But I certainly don’t intend to spend a month on the coast and not have one good hunt for buried treasure. I’ve always wanted to hunt for buried treasure and now’s the time. I dare say there’s plenty of it around here. There always is. Captain Kidd probably left a few chests of gold and diamonds somewhere about. He was awfully careless, Kidd was, with his treasure. Why, everyone knows that he buried chests of gold all up and down the Atlantic coast!”