“We’ll play you again next Wednesday,” said Arnold as the two nines, victor and vanquished, trailed back to the village.

“Yes, and beat you, too,” growled Frank Lamson. “You fellows had all the luck today and most of the decisions!”

“We may have had some luck,” responded Toby, “but you can’t say Mr. Trainor didn’t umpire fairly. And I guess our fellows will be all ready for you any time you say. If you want to play again Wednesday——”

“Make it a week from Wednesday,” advised George Dodson, nursing a hurt finger solicitously. “We need more practice than we’ve had, Deering.”

“A week from Wednesday, then,” agreed Toby. “We’re always glad to show you chaps how to play.” And he smiled provokingly at Frank. Frank only growled.

Arnold was on hand bright and early Monday morning to watch the interesting operation of fixing the ribs to the curving keel of the new knockabout. It was all Toby could do to persuade him to leave the shed and go fishing, and when Arnold did finally allow himself to be dragged away he was so full of his sailboat that he fell over every obstacle in the yard and talked incessantly about it until the Turnover was well out of the harbor. They chugged across to the flats above Johnstown and cast their lines over. It was a good day for fishing, with a cloudy sky and a favorable tide, but for some reason doubtless known only to them the fish refused the invitations extended. Arnold didn’t mind much, for he preferred talking to fishing today. With the launch tugging at her anchor they whiled away the most of the forenoon, Arnold at last fairly talking himself out on the subject of the knockabout.

“What would you name her?” he asked. “How do you like Sea Swallow or Sea Lark?”

“I like Sea Cow better,” replied Toby, pulling up his line to look disgustedly at the untouched bait. “Get something with more zip to it. Like Dart or Scud—or—or Slap-Bang. Slap-Bang would be a good name for a knockabout, for that’s just the way they go, slapping the water and banging down on the waves.”

But Arnold wasn’t very enthusiastic about that suggestion. He said something “more—more romantic” would be better, and Toby, anxious to oblige, suggested in rapid succession Polly, Mary, Moonlight, Lillian, Corsair, Pirate, and Mayflower. But Arnold was hard to please, and turned up his nose at all of those. After that the subject was momentarily abandoned and Arnold reverted to the question of Toby’s expenditure of that one hundred and fifty dollars. It seemed to hurt Arnold to think of that magnificent sum lying idle in the bank, and he was all for action. He had more schemes for getting rid of it than Toby could remember.

“How much did you say it would take to go to Yardley Hall for a year?” Toby asked finally, putting fresh bait on his hook and absent-mindedly wiping his hands on his trousers.

“Yardley? I don’t remember what we figured it. Why?”

“I was just thinking,” murmured Toby. “Seems to me we said it would be about three hundred and fifty dollars for everything.”

“I guess so. Let’s see. A hundred and fifty for tuition, say two hundred for room and board, and about ten or fifteen for other things. How much is that?”

“Three hundred and sixty-five,” replied Toby promptly. “I’d have to have two hundred and fifteen more, wouldn’t I?”

“Say!” Arnold sat up very suddenly. “You’re not thinking of—of——”

Toby nodded. “Yes, I am thinking of it, but I guess it won’t get beyond the thinking, Arn. Where’d I get two hundred and fifteen more? Maybe dad could spare me fifty; say twenty-five at first and another twenty-five in the winter, but that would leave a hundred and sixty-five to be got somewhere. I don’t suppose a fellow could—could earn anything there, could he?”

“I don’t believe so,” answered Arnold dejectedly.

“I didn’t know. You read about fellows at college cutting grass and shoveling snow and—and things like that, you know, and helping themselves a whole lot. I thought maybe a fellow could do something of that sort at Yardley.”

“Well, maybe he could,” said Arnold cautiously. “I wouldn’t say he couldn’t, Toby. Wouldn’t your father come across with more than fifty?”

“I don’t say he’d come across with any,” answered Toby. “He isn’t making much money nowadays, although things look better this summer. He’s got four orders so far, counting yours, and one of them’s a pretty big one. But I wouldn’t want to ask him to let me have more than fifty, anyhow. If there was only some way to earn some money around here!” Toby gazed thoughtfully across at the near-by shore. “Running errands doesn’t get you much. I’ve thought of about everything. Sometimes you can do pretty well fishing and selling to the summer folks, but when the fish don’t bite any better than they’re biting today——”

His voice dwindled away into silence and for a minute only the lap-lap of the water was heard. Then it was Arnold who began again, prefacing his remark with a long sigh. “Gee, Toby, it would certainly be great if you could come to Yardley,” he said wistfully. “Think of the dandy times we could have! And playing ball like you did Saturday, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d make your class team right off! And then there’s football and hockey——!”

Toby nodded agreement. “I’d sure like it,” he muttered.

“Isn’t there any way to earn that much?” pursued Arnold. “Look here, couldn’t you do anything with this launch? Couldn’t you sell her for something?”

Toby looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said slowly. “She wouldn’t fetch much, though. Besides, you can buy plenty of second-hand launches around here. They are as thick as blackberries. Maybe—maybe I’ll think of some way, though. I—I’ve sort of made up my mind to go to that Yardley Hall place, Arn, and when I make up my mind I most always get what I’m after. It’s funny, but that’s the way it is.”

“Well, then, you make up your mind hard!” laughed Arnold. “And I’ll make up mine hard, too. And—and maybe it’ll really happen!”

“Maybe. Sometimes it seems to me as if when you want a thing you’ve just got to set your mind on it and—and steer right straight for it, and you’ll get it. I don’t suppose it always happens like that, but pretty often it does. You’ve got to sort of concentrate, Arn; forget other things and pick up your marks and—and keep your course mighty steady.” Toby drew up his empty hook and began reeling the line. “Anyway, I’m going to try it.”

For the next several days Toby had queer periods of thoughtfulness, going off into trances without warning and quite alarming Arnold, who feared, or professed to fear, that his chum’s mind was giving way. “It’s having all that money to think about,” declared Arnold. “If you’d only spend it for something it wouldn’t worry you.”

“As long as that bank doesn’t bust,” answered the other, “I’m not troubling about the money. Your father said it was a very safe bank, didn’t he?”

“Safe as any of them,” teased Arnold, “but, of course, you never can tell when the cashier or—or some one will take it into his head to start off to Canada!”

“Huh! They fetch ’em back now,” said Toby. “That doesn’t scare me. Dad says I might have put it in the postoffice, though.”

“Buy stamps with it?” asked Arnold in a puzzled voice.

“No, put it in the Postal Savings Bank. The government looks after it for you then, and I guess the government would be pretty safe, eh?”

“So’s that bank you’ve got it in. If it wasn’t safe do you suppose father would keep money in it?”

“N-no, I guess not. I wouldn’t want to lose that hundred and fifty though. I—I’ve got a use for that!”

“Have you asked your father about Yardley yet?”

Toby shook his head. “I thought I’d better wait until I had some more. Only thing is”—he frowned deeply—“I don’t know how to get any more! I’ve been thinking and thinking!”

“Oh, well, there’s lots of time yet. Come on down to the shed and see how the boat’s getting along.”

The knockabout was coming fast and Arnold never tired of watching Mr. Tucker and “Long Tim” and “Shorty” at work. Long Tim’s full name was Timothy Tenney. He stood fully six feet three inches tall when he straightened up, but that was seldom since the bending over to his work for some forty-odd years had put a perceptible stoop to his shoulders. Long Tim was thin and angular and weather beaten, with a fringe of grizzled whiskers from ear to ear, and very little in the way of hair above the whiskers. He loved to talk, and was a mine of strange, even unbelievable information which he was quite ready to impart in his nasal drawl. “Shorty” was Joe Cross, a small, square chunk of a man who had come ashore years before from a Newfoundland lumber schooner and had forgotten to return until the schooner had sailed again. Shorty had a family somewhere in Canada, and was forever threatening to go back to it, but never got further than New York. Long Tim came from a family of boat-builders, but Shorty had learned the trade under Mr. Tucker. Both were capable workmen, although Long Tim looked on Shorty as still merely an apprentice, and shook his head dolefully when he was entrusted with any more particular task than driving a nail.

If Arnold could have had his way he would have spent most of his waking hours sitting in the boat shed with his feet in sawdust and shavings and auger chips watching the knockabout grow and listening to the ceaseless drawling of Long Tim. But Toby wasn’t satisfied to dawdle like that and hailed Arnold off to various more lively occupations. Several afternoons during the next ten days were spent by Arnold, none too enthusiastically, in practicing ball with the Spanish Head team in preparation for that approaching game.

Toby, too, put in a little time in a similar way, but the trouble with Toby’s team was that it was impossible to get all the fellows together at the same time. Usually they were shy from one to four players and were forced to fill up the ranks with such volunteers as were on hand. Arnold brought stirring tales of practice over at the Head and predicted overwhelming victory for his nine. But Toby refused to become alarmed. The Towners had won once, and he believed they could do it again. Even if they couldn’t there was still no harm done. Baseball was only baseball and some one had to lose!

It was on a Wednesday, just a week after that first contest, that Toby stood on the town landing float and waited for Arnold to come over from the Head in the Frolic. At low tide it was finicky work getting up to the boat-yard pier, and Arnold tied up at the town float instead. The hour was still early, for in the Tucker cottage breakfast was at six-thirty in summer, and Toby had cleaned the spark-plug on the Turnover, mended a window screen, walked to the grocery store and back on an errand, and reached the landing, and, behind him, the clock in the church tower showed the time to be still well short of eight. Arnold had promised to come across early, however, since they had planned to run up to Riverport and get some hardware for the knockabout which was waiting for them at the freight depot. Save that Toby was seated across the bow of a dory instead of on a box, he presented much the same appearance as at our first meeting with him. Perhaps his skin was a little deeper brown, and perhaps, as he gazed again across the harbor and bay, his face was a trifle more thoughtful—or his thoughtfulness a bit more earnest. And he was whistling a new tune under his breath, something that Phebe had of late been playing incessantly on the old-fashioned square piano in the cottage parlor. The harbor was quiet and almost deserted. On a black sloop, moored well off the landing, a man was busy with pail and swab, but, excepting for the gulls, he was the only moving thing in sight until footsteps sounded on the pier above and a man descended the gangplank.

He was a middle-aged man in a suit of blue serge and square-toed shoes, and he carried a brown leather satchel. He looked like a person in a hurry, Toby concluded, although there was no apparent reason for his hurry. He looked impatiently about the float and then at Toby.

“Isn’t there a ferry here?” he demanded.

“No, sir. Where do you want to go?”

“Johnstown. I thought there was a ferry over there. I was told there was.” He viewed Toby accusingly.

Toby shook his head. “There used to be, sir, about six years ago, but the man who ran it died, and——”

“Great Scott! Do you mean to tell me that I’ve got to go way around by Riverport? Why, that’ll take me two hours! And I’ve got an appointment there at nine! What sort of a place is this, anyway? No ferry! No place to get any breakfast! No—no——!” he sputtered angrily.

“I guess it’ll take most of two hours by carriage,” agreed Toby, “but I can put you over there by eight-thirty, sir.”

“You’ve got a boat?”

“Yes, sir, but——”

“Where is it?” The stranger’s gaze swept over the bobbing craft. “I suppose it’s a sailboat and we’ll drift around out there half the morning. Well, I’ll try it. Good gracious, only seventy miles from the city and no—no accommodations of any sort! No place to eat, no ferry——”

“Yes, sir, we’re sort of slow around here,” agreed Toby, calmly.

“Slow! I should say you were slow! Well, where’s the boat? Bring it along! There’s no time to waste, young fellow!”

“Well, if you don’t have to be there before nine”—Toby looked over his shoulder at the church clock—“you’ve got plenty of time to have some breakfast before we start. It’s only three miles across and I’ve got a launch that’ll do it in twenty minutes easy.”

“Launch, eh? That’s better! Show me where I can get a cup of coffee then. I haven’t had anything to eat since last night. I left Southampton at six and there wasn’t time. Got a restaurant here somewhere, have you?”

“Not exactly a restaurant,” replied Toby, “but if you’ll come with me I’ll show you where you can get some coffee and bread and butter. The launch is over there, anyway, so it won’t take much longer.”

“Look ahead, then,” said the man. “I’ll go most anywhere for a cup of coffee!” The prospect of food seemed to better his humor, for all the way up the landing and around the road to the cottage he asked questions and conversed quite jovially. When, however, he discovered that the boy had led him to his home he was all for backing down.

“It’s very kind of you,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want to bother any one to make coffee for me. I’ll wait till I get to Johnstown.”

“It won’t be any trouble, sir, and my mother will be glad to do it. Gee, she’d like it if I’d bring some one around to be fed every day! Please, come right in, sir, and sit down, and mother’ll have something ready for you in no time.”

Hesitatingly, the stranger allowed himself to be conducted up the steps and into the sitting room, and Toby went to the kitchen and acquainted his mother with the needs of the occasion, producing in Mrs. Tucker a fine flurry of excitement and an enthusiastic delight. Ten minutes later, refreshed and grateful, the stranger—he had introduced himself as Mr. Whitney of New York—followed Toby through the yard, down the slippery ladder, and into the Turnover. If he felt dubious about trusting himself to that craft and to Toby’s seamanship, he made no sign. Toby cast off and then faced his passenger.

“I guess,” he announced, “we’d ought to agree on a price before we start, sir.”

“Eh? Oh, yes! Well, you’ve got me where I can’t say much, young fellow. Just be easy and there won’t be any kick from me. What’s the damage going to be?”

“Well, sir, it’s three miles over there, and gasoline’s worth twenty-three cents this week, and——”

“Don’t frighten me to death!” laughed the man. “Will five dollars do the trick?”

“Five dollars!” Toby gasped.

“Not enough? Call it seven-fifty then.”

“It’s too much! Why, a dollar—or maybe, a dollar and a half——”

The stranger laughed loudly. “Go ahead, then! But you’ll never be a millionaire if you do business that way. When any one offers you five dollars, young fellow, it’s poor business to take less.”

Toby smiled as he put the handle in the fly-wheel. “Seems to me, sir,” he said, “it’s just as poor business to offer five dollars when the job’s only worth a dollar and a half!”

“Well, that’s right, too!” The man chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I’m not a millionaire yet. Want me to do anything in the way of steering?”

“No, sir, thanks. I’ll steer from here.”

The Turnover backed away from the pier, turned and crept out of the narrow channel, across the cove and into the harbor. Half-way to the entrance they passed a surprised Arnold at the wheel of the Frolic and Toby called across to him that he would be back about a quarter past nine. Arnold nodded and waved and the white launch and the gray swept past each other. The passenger came forward and made himself comfortable opposite Toby as the Turnover pointed her nose across the bay. In the course of the conversation that ensued above the clatter of the little engine Toby learned that Mr. Whitney was a contractor and that he was going to Johnstown to consult with a man about building a cottage there.

“I’m doing some work at Southampton,” he explained, “and it’s going to be awkward for a while getting from one place to the other. Guess I’ll have to buy me one of these things, eh? Unless—look here, want to arrange to take me back and forth now and then? I’ll pay you three dollars the round trip.”

“Yes, sir, I’d be glad to,” agreed Toby eagerly. “When would you want to go again?”

“I don’t know that yet. This little tub seems pretty seaworthy. Run her a good deal, have you?”

“Yes, sir, and others before her. She isn’t much to look at, but she’s a good boat.”

“What do you call her?”

“The Turnover.”

“The which?”

“Turnover, sir,” repeated Toby, smiling.

“Well, that’s a pleasant, reassuring sort of name for a launch! Does she—does she do it—often?”

“No, sir, she’s never done it yet,” laughed Toby. “You can’t tell much by names, Mr. Whitney.”

“H’m; well, I’m glad to hear it. I was thinking that maybe we’d better call that bargain off! Is that the landing ahead there?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be in in a minute or two.”

“I suppose you get mail in Greenhaven? Well, I’ll drop you a line some day soon and tell you when I’ll be along next. Let me see, what’s your name?”

“Tucker, sir; T. Tucker.”

“T? For Thomas?”

“N-no, sir; for Tobias; Toby for short.”

“I see! Toby Tucker, Greenhaven, Long Island.” Mr. Whitney set the address down in a memorandum book. “All right, Toby, you’ll hear from me.” He replaced the little book in a vest pocket and pulled out a wallet. “Now, we’ll settle up for the present trip and start fair the next time.” He took a five-dollar bill from the purse and handed it across.

“I—I can’t change that, sir,” said Toby. “You can let it go until next time.”

“I don’t want you to change it, Toby. I guess five isn’t too much for that breakfast and this trip. It’s worth it to me, anyway.”

“There isn’t any charge for breakfast,” Toby protested.

“Well, then, we’ll call it a bonus on the contract. Stick it in your pocket, young fellow, and don’t look as if it was poison.”

“But it’s a lot more than it ought to be,” stammered Toby.

“Don’t you worry about that,” laughed the man. “It’s worth ten times five dollars to me to get here on time. Here we are! Much obliged to you, Tobias. See you again. Good-by!”

Mr. Whitney, bag in hand, jumped nimbly to the float, waved a hand, and hurried away, leaving Toby the happy possessor of the magnificent sum of five dollars, a beatific prospect of more, and a wonderful idea!