After a supper that filled the colored waiters with astonishment, the boys selected arm-chairs on the forward deck, and began to talk over the cruise. They all agreed that they had had a splendid time, in spite of hard work and frequent wettings.
"We'll go on another cruise next summer, sure," said Harry. "Where shall we go?"
Tom was the first to reply. Said he, "I've been thinking that we can do better than we did this time."
"How so?" asked the other boys.
"The Whitewing is an awfully nice boat," Tom continued, "but she is too small. We ought to have a boat that we can sleep in comfortably, and without getting wet every night."
"But then," Harry suggested, "you couldn't drag a bigger boat round a dam."
"We can't drag the Whitewing round much of a dam. She's too big to be handled on land, and too little to be comfortable. Now here's my plan."
"Let's have it," cried the other boys.
"We can hire a cat-boat about twenty feet long, and she'll be big enough, so that we can rig up a canvas cabin at night. We can anchor her, and sleep on board her every night. We can carry mattresses, so we needn't sleep on stones and stumps—"
"And coffee-pots," interrupted Joe.