“You certainly understand these things, Herrick,” he said admiringly.
“I used to have a little one-cylinder motor boat when I was about twelve,” replied Jack. “She wasn’t anything like this, but the principal is the same with all of them. Hal, you’ll find that she’ll do best with your throttle about there; see? If you advance it any farther she’ll begin to miss a little. If you want more speed open the cut-out, although that really doesn’t make very much difference, I guess. She steers nicely, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, and she’ll turn almost in her length,” said Hal. “Suppose that carbureter gets out of order, Jack, what do I do?”
“Take my advice and don’t do anything,” replied Jack with a smile. “It’s dollars to doughnuts the trouble’s somewhere else and if you monkey with the carbureter you’ll never get it back again where it was. Sometimes on a cold morning you’ll have trouble getting the right mixture. Hold your hand over the air intake in that case; flood the carbureter first, though. You may have to turn her over a good many times, but she’ll start finally. I wouldn’t fuss with the carbureter ever, Hal.”
“Of course not,” said Bee. “Why, even I had sense enough not to touch that yesterday!”
“Then I’ll bet you didn’t see it,” said Hal. “You took everything else to pieces!”
“I know I did. And look how she went afterwards! I guess you never saw a launch drift any faster than she did out there!”
Jack brought the boat around in a long turn and headed back toward the basin. “Well, I guess you’ll find now that she’ll do something else beside drift. She can make a good twelve miles with the tide, Hal.”