He was such a pleasant, frank gentleman, and was so evidently earnest in what he said, that the boys at once decided to get ‘Rice Lake’ canoes. They did not think it worth while to make any farther inquiries; but, as they had three other notes of introduction with them, Tom Schuyler said that it would hardly do to throw them away. So they went to see the next canoeist, though without the least expectation that he would say anything that would alter their decision.
Canoeist No. 2 was as polite and enthusiastic as canoeist No. 1. “So you boys want to get canoes, do you?” said he. “Well, there is only one canoe for you to get, and that is the ‘Shadow.’ She paddles easily, and sails faster than any other canoe. She’s not a flat-bottomed skiff, like the ‘Rice Laker,’ that will spill you whenever a squall strikes her, but she has good bearings, and you can’t capsize her unless you try hard. Then, she is decked all over, and you can sleep in her at night, and keep dry even in a thunder-storm; her water-tight compartments have hatches in them, so that you can stow blankets and things in them that you want to keep dry; and she has a keel, so that when you run rapids, and she strikes on a rock, she will strike on her keel instead of her planks. It isn’t worth while for you to look at any other canoe, for there is no canoe except the ‘Shadow’ that is worth having.”
“You don’t think much of the ‘Rice Lake’ canoe, then?” asked Harry.
“Why, she isn’t a civilized canoe at all,” replied the canoeist. “She is nothing but a heavy, wooden copy of the Indian birch. She hasn’t any deck, she hasn’t any water-tight compartments, and she hasn’t any keel. Whatever else you do, don’t get a ‘Rice Laker.’”
The boys thanked the advocate of the “Shadow,” and when they found themselves in the street again they wondered which of the two canoeists could be right, for each directly contradicted the other, and each seemed to be perfectly sincere. They reconsidered their decision to buy “Rice Lake” canoes, and looked forward with interest to their meeting with canoeist No. 3.
That gentleman was just as pleasant as the other two, but he did not agree with a single thing that they had said. “There are several different models of canoes,” he remarked, “but that is simply because there are ignorant people in the world. Mr. Macgregor, the father of canoeing, always uses a ‘Rob Roy’ canoe, and no man who has once been in a good ‘Rob Roy’ will ever get into any other canoe. The ‘Rob Roy’ paddles like a feather, and will outsail any other canoe. She weighs twenty pounds less than those great, lumbering canal-boats, the ‘Shadow’ and the ‘Rice Laker,’ and it don’t break your back to paddle her or to carry her round a dam. She is decked over, but her deck isn’t all cut up with hatches. There’s plenty of room to sleep in her, and her water-tight compartments are what they pretend to be—not a couple of leaky boxes stuffed full of blankets.”
“We have been advised,” began Charley, “to get ‘Shadows’ or ‘Rice’—”
“Don’t you do it,” interrupted the canoeist. “It’s lucky for you that you came to see me. It is a perfect shame for people to try to induce you to waste your money on worthless canoes. Mind you get ‘Rob Roys,’ and nothing else. Other canoes don’t deserve the name. They are schooners, or scows, or canal-boats, but the ‘Rob Roy’ is a genuine canoe.”
“Now for the last canoeist on the list!” exclaimed Harry as the boys left the office of canoeist No. 3. “I wonder what sort of a canoe he uses?”
“I’m glad there is only one more of them for us to see,” said Joe. “The Commodore told us to believe all they said, and I’m trying my best to do it, but it’s the hardest job I ever tried.”