Their troubles were soon over, and, seated in front of a fine, big fire in the Deerings’ living room, they recounted their adventures while they sipped from steaming cups of beef tea and voraciously devoured bread and butter sandwiches. Later the car was brought around and Toby and Phebe, warm and sleepy, were whisked away to the little house in Harbor Street, to the accompaniment of incessant shrill warnings, which, in their somnolent state, became confused with fog-horns. After that came slumber, deep and undisturbed.

The fog vanished in the morning, and shortly before noon the two boys stretched a line from the Frolic to the Aydee and pulled the latter easily enough into deep water. Then Toby produced a chart, and they tried to trace their wanderings of the evening before. The knockabout had, it appeared, covered some three and a half miles with the tide and what little breeze had aided, and, instead of grounding on the outer shore of the Head, had drifted around the point, and then, by some freak of the currents, turned into Nobbs’ Bay and settled her nose in the sand a half-mile beyond the Deerings’ landing. She must have passed within a hundred feet of the Trainors’ houseboat, they concluded, on the way. Arnold somewhat triumphantly pointed out that he had, after all, been right as to direction, and that if they had set off along the shore as he had advised they’d have reached home much sooner and without struggling through thickets and briers. All of which Toby was forced to acknowledge.

“I thought we were along here somewhere,” he defended, putting a finger on the outer shore. “And if we’d gone to the right we’d have traveled toward Shinnecock. How that boat ever got around the point and turned in here I can’t see!”

“Huh!” returned Arnold in superior tones. “That boat knows enough to go home, Toby. I’ve got it trained!”

Arnold spent most of that afternoon stocking the yacht with things which, he predicted, would make shipwreck a positive pleasure! He replaced the lost oar, tucked two suits of oilskins into a cubby, invested in a square of canvas which, if necessity required, could be pulled across the cockpit, and would, doubtless have installed that heating system had it been in any way possible. The compass, a very elaborate one in a mahogany box, arrived that day from New York, and was put in place. And then Arnold set out to find a tender.

“If we’d had a tender,” he explained, “we could have dropped anchor most anywhere and rowed ourselves ashore. Besides, every yacht ought to have a tender.”

They looked at three or four the next morning, but none was in good enough condition to please Arnold. “I want a tender,” he said, “but I don’t want it so tender it’ll fall to pieces!” In the end Mr. Tucker was commissioned to build one, a tiny cedar affair that would barely hold four persons without sinking. When it was finished, which was not until the middle of August, since Mr. Tucker was busy on another order, Arnold viewed it delightedly. “That’s fine,” he declared. “In the winter we can bring it into the house and put it on the mantel for an ornament!”

There were no more shipwrecks, now that the Aydee was prepared for them, and I think that her skipper was slightly disappointed. But the knockabout provided a lot of fun and by the time the summer was nearing its end Arnold had become quite a proficient navigator and had acquired a coat of tan that was the envy of his friends at the Head. Toby said it was more than a coat, it was a regular ulster! The Aydee sailed in two races in August, one a handicap affair in which her time allowance of a minute and forty seconds enabled her to almost but not quite win, and the other a contest for twenty-one-footers in which she was badly outdistanced. Perhaps the fact that Toby sailed the Aydee in the first race and that Arnold and Frank Lamson manned her in the second may have had something to do with the results. Once imbued with the racing mania, Arnold liked nothing better than putting out into the bay and trying conclusions with any sailing craft that hove in sight. He didn’t much care how big the opponent might be or how much sail she carried. He was always ready and eager for a brush. Usually he was outsailed or outmaneuvered, but now and then he came home victor and was extremely proud until some craft unkindly beat him the next day.

But life wasn’t all racing, for the Aydee was frequently put to more humdrum uses, as when, one fine day toward the last of the month, Arnold, Toby, Frank and Phebe embarked with many baskets and bundles and sailed away to a pleasant spot far down on the south shore of the bay and picnicked. Confidentially, both Toby and Frank favored using the Frolic for the expedition, but Arnold nowadays considered motorboating poor sport and wouldn’t listen to any such proposal. Fortunately, they had a good breeze all day and the Aydee performed beautifully. The boys took bathing suits along and as soon as the anchor was dropped they rowed ashore, converted a clump of bushes into a bath-house, and got ready for the water. Then they returned to the yacht and dived off the deck to their hearts’ content, while Phebe, more practical, placed the baskets in the tender and went ashore to “set the table.” They lunched on a grassy knoll between the bay and a winding inlet. Every one had provided a share of the provender and, while there was some duplication, the result included a marvelous variety of viands. Frank pretended to think picnics a great bore, but it was observed by the others that he did his full share of eating. On the whole, Frank was fairly good company that day, and Toby and Phebe liked him better than they ever had before. Possibly Arnold, whose guest he was, had cautioned him to make himself agreeable.

They tried bathing in the inlet after their repast, but voted the water too warm, and so went for a long walk up the shore, in the course of which Arnold managed to cut his foot rather deeply on a shell. Phebe applied first-aid by sacrificing a handkerchief and they returned to the scene of the luncheon, packed up and embarked once more. They sailed home with the sun slanting at them across the quiet water and reached harbor just as twilight was stealing down through the little village. They all voted the excursion a huge success and promised themselves another, but it didn’t take place that summer for the season was fast nearing its close and there were so many, many other things to be done.

About that time Toby balanced his books, so to speak, and found himself in possession of a sum of money slightly in excess of two hundred and seventy-five dollars, or, to be more exact, in possession of a bank book crediting him with that amount. He could reckon on another three weeks or so of ferrying, and that, he believed ought to add some forty-five dollars more to his fund, leaving him with a final grand total of three hundred and twenty dollars. He and Arnold had figured that three hundred and fifty would see him through the first year at Yardley Hall School, but Toby realized that an expenditure of something like forty dollars would be necessary for clothes. What he had was all well enough for Greenhaven, but not quite good enough for Yardley. A new suit of clothes would cost him twenty-five dollars, he supposed, leaving fifteen for other supplies. Consequently, he would be about seventy dollars shy of the required sum by the middle of September, and where to get that seventy dollars worried Toby considerably.

Of course it wasn’t absolutely settled that he was to go to Yardley, even if he found the necessary amount of money, but he was pretty sure that his father meant to consent finally, and as for his mother, why she had already promised her support, although that was still a secret between her and the boy. It was time, Toby told himself, to have the question settled, and so that evening he broached the matter again to his father, with the result that the next evening Arnold was on hand with the school catalogue and a large fund of enthusiasm, both of which doubtless influenced Mr. Tucker in his ultimate decision. The catalogue was gone through very thoroughly, Arnold explaining. The pictures were viewed, the study courses discussed, and the matter of expense gravely considered. Toby let his father and Arnold do the talking, maintaining for the most part a discreet and anxious silence.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tucker at last. “I suppose if Toby wants to try it for a year there’s no harm done except the spending of a considerable amount of money. You say he’s got to go there three years anyway, and maybe four, to finish up, eh?”

“Probably four, sir,” answered Arnold. “He might get into the fourth class, but I guess it would be the third. Of course, some fellows do the four years in three, and maybe Toby could.”

“H’m. Well, Toby, one year will use all your money up. What’ll you do next year?”

“I’ll make more before that,” replied Toby with a fine assurance. “There’s the ferry, dad, you know. I ought to do better with that next summer, don’t you think?”

“Likely you ought. But where do you expect to get the seventy dollars you need for this year, son? If you’re counting on me—!” Mr. Tucker shook his head. “I might be able to help you a little: say twenty-five or thirty; but seventy’s too much for me.”

“If you’ll let me have twenty-five I’ll get hold of the rest somewhere, sir. You see I don’t have to pay it all now. I can pay it in three lots if I like, fifty dollars now, fifty dollars in January and twenty-five in April. Arnold doesn’t seem to think there’d be much chance of earning a little at school, but you—you read about fellows doing it.”

“I guess you read a lot in stories that ain’t just so,” replied his father, dryly. “Well, all right, son. It’s your money. If you want to spend it this way I’m willing. I hope you’ll get enough learning to come out even, though. If I was you I’d make up my mind to get my money’s worth, I think. Money ain’t so easy come by these days!”

“Hooray!” shouted Arnold. “That’s fine, Mr. Tucker! Toby, you sit down there this minute and write your application!”

“What application?” asked Toby.

“Why, you’ve got to apply for admission, of course! And the sooner you do it the better chance you’ll have. For all we know the enrollment may be already filled for this fall.”

“Oh!” said Toby blankly. “I didn’t know that. I thought all I had to do was just—just go! Suppose they’ve got all they want! Wouldn’t that be the dickens? Here, where’s the pen and ink, sis? Why didn’t you tell me about this application business, Arn? I’d have done it two months ago!”

“Goodness me,” sighed Mrs. Tucker, “I do hope you ain’t too late, Toby! That would be an awful disappointment, now, wouldn’t it? You don’t think he is, do you, Arnold?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t think so. Lots of fellows have joined school just before it has opened. But I guess it’ll be safer to write now.”

“What’ll I say?” demanded Toby. “Who do I write to? Hadn’t dad ought to do it instead of me?”

“Just as you like, Toby. I guess it doesn’t matter who writes it. You’ll have to give your parents’ names and the names of two other residents of your town. It’s a good idea to have one of them your minister. They like that,” added Arnold, wisely.

That application was posted inside of an hour, Toby dropping it into the box at the postoffice after saying good-night to Arnold at the landing, and for the next week he was on tenter-hooks of anxiety. But the answer came in due time, and Toby slit the envelope with trembling fingers.

The school secretary acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Tobias Tucker’s letter, enclosed a form for him to fill out and sign and instructed him to mail form and remittance for fifty-five dollars before the beginning of the Fall Term. Toby clapped his cap on his head and tore out of the house in search of Arnold.