“A hat?” A rather sad smile curled Jack’s lips. “A hat?” His voice quite lost its accustomed cheeriness. “Why, that’s the house-boat—our house-boat, you blundering pirate.”
“Why—er—honest—but now I can see it,” grinned Joe, with a wink at nothing in particular. “Oh, yes, I was too far away. There’s the roof——”
“And deck,” chimed in Fred, forgetting his usual solemnity, and vainly trying to stifle a gurgle.
“And you can even read the name,” laughed Aleck. “All done by hand, too. The water’s great.”
“It ought to be—it’s in water-color, isn’t it?” inquired Joe. “Hang it up, Jack. Never thought you could do anything like that,” and, as Jack looked at him suspiciously, he hastened to add, “Anything so good, I mean.”
“And now let’s have the tube that makes little boats turn into big boats,” said Fred, when the painting had been placed in a prominent position.
For an hour the lads amused themselves with the telescope, and watching the antics of “Confuse-us,” and then began to grow impatient, fearing that some delay might prevent the engine from reaching them that day.
Then a voice outside caused Jack to spring up.
“It’s Jim Benton,” he said, as a hail reached their ears.
The machinist, with a bag of tools, clambered on board.