“Too late,” answered his companion in disaster gloomily. “We’re dead. It’s perfectly silly to come along at this late day and rescue us, Jimmy.”
“Well, if you’re dead it’s up to us to bury you. Mind if we don’t sew you up in sacks, Nick? We’re awfully shy of sacks.”
“I mind terribly. I couldn’t think of being buried at sea without a sack. I suppose you’ll tell me next that you haven’t even a cannon ball to sink me with!”
“He might use a couple of those doughnuts,” suggested Hugh, poking with one foot at a bundle in the middle of the canoe.
“Doughnuts?” asked Jimmy eagerly. “Got eats in there, fellows?”
“Yes, sir.” Nick pulled himself up with a groan. “We’re off on a picnic, Jimmy. And that reminds me, Hugh, that it’s about time we looked for a picturesque sylvan glade somewhere. Seen any of those things, Jimmy?”
Jimmy, who had been working the light blue canoe along until it now rocked companionably beside the white one, shook his head. “No,” he answered. “Let’s—er—let’s look at one of those doughnuts, Nick.”
Nick viewed him speculatively and then dropped his gaze to the bundle. “I wouldn’t want to expose them to the air, Jimmy. They get stale so soon, you see. But I’ll describe them to you. They’re big and fat and sort of a lovely golden-brown color, and they’ve got sugar sprinkled on their circumferences, so to speak. Honest, Jimmy, they’re awfully tasty doughnuts. You’d like ’em, I feel sure.”
“Stingy brute! Come across, Nick. I’m as hungry as a bear. You’ve got plenty, I’ll bet.”
“Depends,” replied Nick, clasping his hands about his knees, “what you call plenty. We’ve got only a dozen.”