“We thought you’d been arrested as a suspicious character in those clothes!”
These were some of the exclamations.
The man got out of the car and threw his bundle of rugs on the steps of the porch. “My good friends,” he said, “Roderick Fitzhugh has been adventuring, and there’s his booty. Four beautiful hooked-rugs to add to the collection. And this is Mr. Benjamin Sully. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sully has found a silver snuff-box belonging to Joseph Hastings in a treasure chest on Cotterel’s Island. What do you think of that?”
There was another chorus of exclamations, expressive of great surprise.
“Mr. Sully,” the man in green continued, “if you’ll get down from your steed we will partake of a long glass of lemonade—two glasses to be exact.”
Ben climbed down and went up the steps. And then he noticed that all the people on the porch were dressed in quaint costumes, as milkmaids or archers or foresters. He looked at Fitzhugh, and the latter nodded. “Queer crowd, aren’t they?” said Fitzhugh. “However, they won’t bite.”
XII—THE ADVENTURE AT THE COVE
That same morning, while Ben had been hunting for the owner of the red automobile with the silver eagle on the radiator cap, Tom and David and John Tuckerman had sailed down to Camp Amoussock in the Argo. They found the boys at the camp in their bathing-suits, practicing for some water-sports that were to be held that week. A raft, with a spring-board, was moored off shore, and from this boys were diving and turning somersaults, backward and forward, like acrobats in a circus.
Other boys were swimming, practising for races, and still others were paddling round in tubs, trying to steer with their feet while they propelled the tubs forward by splashing the water with their hands.
“There,” said John Tuckerman, as he saw a fat youngster revolving round and round in a tub, “that’s the game for me. I believe, with my long arms and legs, that I’d make a hit at it.”