"Wouldn't you stand by me in anything? Wouldn't you yell for this yard and its product with your last gasp? Answer me."
"Why, of course we would," Jack Benson admitted.
"Then I take just offense, if you expect me to be any less of a man than yourself," declared Farnum, with a pretense of anger.
"The same sentiment puts me on record," chuckled David Pollard:
"Then let us forget the low comedy, the melodrama, or whatever it was," proposed the boatbuilder. "Let us get down to the regular business of the day. We want more money here, if we can get it on a fair and square basis. If we can't, we'll do our best to go along as we've been going. And now, Jack, and the rest of you, Pollard and I have a few little things to whisper over."
CHAPTER V
DON MELVILLE TAKES A HAND
"Are we at liberty to go up into the village, sir?" asked Jack Benson, pausing at the door.
"Fun?" demanded the boatbuilder, regard them with a dry smile.
"Yes, sir," Jack nodded. "That is, the kind of fun we find in our work. We want to get some metal, a few tools and other things, to rig up something that we think may serve well aboard the 'Pollard.'"