"Never mind, Fuz," said Joe, "we'll serve him out when we get to Grantley."
"Yes," replied Fuz; "I'd just as lief not see too much of him before that. He wont have any special claim on us if he doesn't go there from our house."
Other talk they had together, and the tone of it promised very lively times at Grantley Academy for the stranger from India. But while the Hart boys were laying their plans for the future, they were themselves the subjects of more than one discussion, for Ford Foster gave his two friends the benefit of all he knew of his cousins.
"It's a good thing for you that the steamer didn't go ashore anywhere near their house," he said to Frank Harley. "They're a pair of born young wreckers. Just think of the tricks they played on my sister Annie."
After that conversation, it was remarkable what daily care and attention Dab Kinzer and Frank paid to their sparring lessons. It even exceeded the pluck and perseverance with which Dab went to work at his French.
Plenty of fishing, bathing, riding, boxing. Three boys together can find so much more to do than one can alone, and they made it four as often as they could, for Dick Lee had proved himself the best kind of company. Frank Harley's East Indian experience had made him very indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster had too much manhood to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board the "Swallow."
It was only a day or so after the perilous "cruise" that Dab Kinzer met his old playmate, Jenny Walters, just in the edge of the village.
"How well you look, Dabney!" remarked the sharp-tongued little lady. "Drowning must agree with you."
"Yes," said Dab; "I like it."
"Do you know what a fuss they made over you when you were gone? I s'pose they'd nothing else to do."