“We’ll try you and see,” said Arthur, producing an enormous frying-pan from a locker and a junk of pork from another. “Tom, you’re the boss cook of the crowd. You fry the fish while the rest of us clean up the boat, make things shipshape, and get ready to sail.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Tom, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s see, four apiece is how many?”
And soon the appetizing odour of the frying fish, mingled with that of the steaming coffee, saluted most temptingly the nostrils of the six hungry boys.
It was several hours after this, when the yacht was bowling along in the western bay, near the head of the island, before a fresh southerly breeze, that young Joe said:
“I know how we can play a stupendous joke on everybody in the village.”
Joe being the youngest of the brothers, and of the party, and it being therefore necessary that he should be occasionally squelched, George merely said:
“You don’t think of anything, Joe, but playing jokes.”
“All right,” retorted Joe, “seeing you are all so wildly enthusiastic, I’ll just keep it to myself.”
“Nonsense, Joe, don’t be huffy,” said Arthur, whose curiosity was aroused. “Tell us what it is, and if it is any good we’ll try it, won’t we, boys?”
There being an unanimously affirmative reply, young Joe proceeded.