When within a hundred feet of where the boys stood on the dock, the man threw off the switch and the graceful craft glided up alongside. Charley caught the line the man threw, took a couple of half hitches around a post, and the three clambered aboard.
"By gum, she's a beauty," exclaimed Captain Westfield with delight as he finished his inspection.
"You're right," agreed the man, pleased with the old sailor's approval, "she's one of the best in the fleet. There's only two or three that can run away from her, and she is a peach in a seaway—just like a duck. She is thirty feet over all and sound as a dollar. You will find that cozy little cabin will come in pretty nice in bad weather. Few fish boats have one. Which one of you is going to run her?"
"Not me," said Captain Westfield, decidedly. "I've dealt with sailing crafts all my life and I'm not hankering to start monkeying with engines at my age."
"Both my chum and I would like to learn how to run the engine," Charley said, "so if anything should happen to one of us the other would know what to do."
"All right," the man agreed. "All I can teach you are the principles, you will have to learn to run it by yourself. A gas engine is a thing you have to learn by experience. No two engines are exactly alike. Each has its own peculiarities which one has to become acquainted with. The principles are quite simple. There are only three elements, oil, gas and the spark. See this little valve here? You turn that and it lets the gasoline into this little tank—called a carburetter. This other little valve lets air into the same tank to mix with the gas. Now your gas is on ready to start. See these wires, they lead from four dry battery cells to the switch and from the switch to this plug in the head of the engine called the spark plug. Shove on your switch,—that's right. Now your gas and spark are ready. To start, now, all you have got to do is to rock this big fly wheel a couple of times then throw it over quickly. To stop, just throw off your switch. As soon as you stop, shut off your gas. Keep that oil cup filled. It lubricates the engine. Be careful with matches and lights when your gas is turned on—you can't be too careful." He clambered up on the dock. "Good-by and good luck to you," he called.
"Hold on," cried Charley, in dismay. "You are not going off and leave us this way, are you?"
"Boss's orders," grinned the man. "I can't be with you always. You have got to learn to run her for yourself sooner or later."
The boys sat down and gazed at each other in consternation as the man disappeared up the dock, then Charley grinned as the humor of it struck him. "It's up to us," he chuckled, "unless the captain will help us out."
Captain Westfield shook his head, decidedly. "You are the engineers," he said, firmly. "I can't make head or tail of that dinky heap of iron. 'Pears to me though that the man said something about turning one of those things there."