"But if the eel-grass holds you hard an' fast in one spot most of the time I don't see's you do much sailin'," taunted Jan. "'Pears to me you're just adrift an' goin' nowheres a good part of the time."
"No, I ain't" snapped Zenas Henry with rising ire. "It's only sometimes the thing gets spleeny. Most always—"
"Then it warn't you I saw pitchin' in the channel fur a couple of hours yesterday afternoon," commented the tormentor.
"No. That is—let me think a minute," meditated Zenas Henry. "Yes, I guess it was me, after all," he admitted with reluctant honesty. "The tide brought in quite a batch of weeds, an' they washed up round the boat before I could get out of their way; quicker'n a wink we were neatly snarled up in 'em. Captain Jonas an' Captain Phineas tried to get clear, but somehow they ain't got much knack fur freein' the wheel. So we did linger in the channel a spell."
"Linger!" put in Willie. "I shouldn't call bobbin' up an' down in one spot fur two mortal hours lingerin'. I'd call it nearer bein' hypnotized."
Zenas Henry was now plainly out of temper. He was well aware that Wilton had scant sympathy with his motor-boat, the first innovation of the sort that had been perpetrated in the town.
"Hadn't you better turn your attention from motor-boats to pumps?" he asked testily.
"I reckon I had, Zenas Henry," Willie answered, unruffled by the thrust. "As you say, if you chose to wind yourself up in the eel-grass it's none of my affair."
Turning his back on his visitor, he bent once more over the pump and adjusted a leather washer between its rusty joints.
"Now let's give her a try, Jan," he said, as he tightened the screws. "If that don't fetch her I'm beat."