ARNOLD PAYS HIS DEBTS
Toby was not mistaken, for presently the _Turnover_ was close enough to
the disabled white launch for him to identify one of her two passengers
as Arnold Deering. Who the other boy was Toby didn’t know, nor did he
much care. He slipped the clutch into neutral and let the _Turnover_
run down alongside the _Frolic_. As he did so he vastly enjoyed the
expression of surprise and annoyance that came into Arnold’s face when
the latter recognized him.
“Hello,” said Toby as the boats bobbed side by side. “Want some more
gasoline?”
“Hello,” answered Arnold gruffly. “This silly engine’s out of whack. We
can’t start her. If you’ll give us a tow I’ll pay you for it.”
Toby considered a moment, or appeared to. Then, as the _Turnover_ was
floating past, he threw in the clutch again and circled around to the
other side. At last: “I don’t know about towing,” he said doubtfully.
“The _Frolic’s_ pretty heavy for us, I guess. I might send some one
out to you when I get in.”
Phebe uttered a low-voiced protest. “Don’t be horrid, Toby,” she said.
“Of course we can tow them.”
But the boys in the white launch didn’t hear that, and Arnold looked
dismayed. “But, look here, whatever-your-name-is――――”
“Well, you said it was Red-head this morning,” replied Toby carelessly.
Arnold flushed. “We’ve been here since half-past two, and we want to
get home. I’ve a rope here, and if you’ll tow us in I’ll give you a
dollar.”
The second occupant of the _Frolic_, an older and bigger boy with dark
hair and eyes and a somewhat sulky expression, chimed in impatiently.
“We’ll give him two dollars. I’ll pay half. I’ve got to get back by
five o’clock, Arn.”
“All right then, two,” amended Arnold anxiously. “Get that half-inch
rope out of the stern locker, Frank, will you?”
“Oh, I’d do it for a dollar,” said Toby, “or I might do it for nothing
at all. It isn’t that.” He ruminated again and again chugged the
_Turnover_ into position. “Tell you what I will do,” he continued then.
“I’ll come aboard and see if I can start her for you.”
“What’s the good of that?” demanded Frank. “We’ve been trying for
nearly two hours. And we want to get in.”
“Maybe I might think of something you haven’t,” answered Toby.
“All right, come ahead,” said Arnold.
Toby slid the _Turnover_ close to the other launch and shut off the
engine. “You hold her, Phebe,” he instructed. Then: “This is my sister,
Phebe,” he added by way of introduction. “Phebe, this is Arnold
Deering. You remember I spoke of him this noon,” he added innocently.
Arnold colored as he murmured a response and then introduced Frank
Lamson. Phebe nodded shyly and Toby clambered aboard the _Frolic_. The
two boys then followed him as he tested the engine by throwing the
spark on and turning the wheel a few times. There was no response from
the cylinders and Toby disconnected the wires from the spark-plugs and
grounded them against the engine one at a time. He got sparks from
three of the four, and, after he had cleaned the fourth plug, from all
of them. An examination of the carbureter followed leisurely, Toby
whistling softly all the time. Presently he followed the gasoline
supply pipe back from engine to tank, having to raise the locker covers
to do so, and at last, snapping the door of the forward locker shut
again, he faced Arnold with a satisfied nod.
“Got it,” he said.
“Really? What was the trouble?” asked the _Frolic’s_ skipper.
“Nothing much. I can fix it in a minute.”
“Go ahead, then,” said Frank Lamson, with a scowl. “We’re in a hurry, I
tell you.”
Toby observed him ruminatively for a moment, and then turned his gaze
to Arnold. “I’m still whistling, you see,” he said, and to prove it
went on with his tune.
“Don’t be a fool,” begged Arnold. “If you can fix it――――”
“Won’t take me a minute――after I get started,” was the untroubled
reply. Toby reached up and took off his hat. “You might just take
another look at my hair,” he continued pleasantly. “When the sun isn’t
on it’s quite a bit darker, I think.”
“Toby!” exclaimed Phebe, in a shocked voice.
Arnold flushed and stammered. “What’s that got to do with it?” he
asked. Frank Lamson looked bewildered.
“Well,” said Toby, “I thought maybe you’d like to see if you weren’t
mistaken about the color of my hair.”
Arnold looked at Frank and at Phebe, and finally at Toby’s gently
smiling countenance and swallowed hard. Finally: “Well, it isn’t as red
as I thought it was,” he muttered. “I suppose the sun being on it――――”
“Sure! But just you take another look; take a good hard one now. Sort
of brown, isn’t it?”
Arnold hesitated, cast a fleeting glance at the exposed hair, and
grinned in a sickly way. “I guess that’s so,” he allowed. “I――I’d say
it was quite brown.”
“Not the least bit red, eh?”
Arnold shook his head: “Not a bit.”
“And, seeing you were mistaken this morning, maybe you’d like to sort
of apologize,” suggested Toby. Phebe was observing Arnold with an
expression that seemed to convey to him an apology for her brother’s
conduct, and perhaps her look helped him over his embarrassment. At
all events, when Frank Lamson, puzzled and resentful, broke in with:
“What’s the fuss about? Who cares whether his hair’s brown or――――”
Arnold interrupted quickly.
“Whoa, Frank! This chap’s right.” He laughed good humoredly. “I take it
back, Tucker, and apologize. You’re all right! And――and you can stop
whistling!”
Toby smiled sunnily and clapped his hat on his head. “Now we’ll start
her,” he said. He went back to the forward locker in which the gasoline
tank was located, thrust in a hand, withdrew it, closed the door again
and returned to the engine. “Now try her,” he said.
Arnold did so and the engine woke promptly to life.
“What was it?” he demanded, surprise and admiration struggling for
supremacy in his face.
Toby laughed. “I’ll tell you so it won’t be likely to happen again,” he
replied. “You’ve got a globe cock on your gasoline supply pipe where it
leaves the tank. Usually that shut-off is down here by the engine, and
I don’t know why they put it there. But they did, and when you pulled
your anchor out of your bow locker you managed to get your cable fouled
with the cock and turned it almost square off. You weren’t getting any
gasoline, Deering.”
“But I tried the carbureter twice and it flooded!”
“Of course it did, because there was gasoline in the pipe. The cock
wasn’t quite closed, and enough kept running into the pipe to show in
the carbureter, but not to explode in the cylinders. If I were you I’d
take a piece of zinc and turn it over that cock; make a sort of hood
of it, you know, so your line won’t get twisted in it.”
“I didn’t know there was any shut-off there,” grumbled Frank Lamson,
“or I’d have looked at it.”
“There’s always one somewhere on the pipe,” replied Toby dryly. “Well,
you’re all right now, I guess, eh?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Arnold gratefully. “And, by the way, Tucker――――” He
pulled a dollar bill from his coin purse and held it out with a smile.
“I guess I’ll pay my debt.”
Toby gravely fished up a penny and the transfer was made.
“I don’t know,” continued Arnold doubtfully, “but what I’d ought to pay
for all that gas.” He made a motion toward his pocket again, but Toby
waved the idea aside.
“No, we settled that,” he said. “I don’t mind paying half. It was worth
it!”
Arnold laughed. Then: “But, hold on! How about this job?” he exclaimed.
“Better let me pay you something for it. I’d rather.”
“Oh, shucks, that’s all right. We don’t charge for helping friends
out of trouble around here,” answered Toby as he climbed back to the
_Turnover_. “So long!”
“Well, I’m awfully much obliged,” responded Arnold, and his thanks
seemed to include Phebe as well. “Good-by.” He took off his cap,
something which his companion neglected to do, and waved a farewell
as the _Turnover_ moved away. Frank Lamson only nodded, but, as the
_Turnover_ circled around toward the harbor, he called across the
water: “Say, we’ll race you back!”
But Toby shook his head. “I’m not in racing trim today,” he called
back. “Some other time!”
The _Frolic_ passed them presently, doing a good ten miles against the
turning tide, and Arnold, standing at the wheel in the bow, waved once
more.
“You ought to have been ashamed, Toby,” said his sister severely, “to
act like that!”
“Act like what?” inquired the boy innocently.
“You know perfectly well.”
“Oh, that! Why, you see, sis, I knew he’d made a mistake, and I knew
he’d want to――to correct it. So I just gave him a chance.”
“But to refuse to fix the engine until he’d apologized!”
“I didn’t refuse. I’d have fixed it if he hadn’t. That was just a
bluff――and it worked!” Toby chuckled. “What did you think of him?”
“I thought he was very――very nice,” replied Phebe, after a moment.
“He isn’t so bad, I guess,” agreed Toby carelessly. “Some one ought to
show him how to run that boat, though.”
“And he is very good looking, too,” added Phebe.
Toby grinned. “You wait till you see me with my hair slicked down flat
with vaseline, sis!”
“Vaseline! The idea! His hair is just naturally shiny.”
“Must be. Anyway, you’ve taken a shine to it! Wonder where he picked up
that Lantern chap?”
“Lamson, it was.”
“Lamson, then. He’s a surly beggar.” Toby frowned. “He came mighty near
getting into trouble, too. He almost said my hair was red. If Deering
hadn’t stopped him just when he did――――”
“Toby, you’re too silly for words about the color of your hair. You
know very well that it is――well, reddish, and I don’t see why you don’t
make up your mind to it.”
“You’ve got a pimple on the end of your nose, but――――”
“Toby! I haven’t!” Phebe investigated agitatedly. “It’s just the
tiniest bit of a one, then. Does it show much?”
“Well, you couldn’t see it across the harbor,” was the unfeeling reply.
“Anyhow, it’s there, and I’ll bet you wouldn’t want folks to tell you
about it. Well, it’s like that with my hair, sis. I know it’s sort of
reddish――in the sunlight, maybe――but I don’t care to have fellows say
so. When they do they either have to fight or apologize.”
“I don’t see how fighting proves anything,” objected Phebe.
“It doesn’t prove anything, no, but it sort of makes you forget the
insult! Here we are. Take the wheel and I’ll fend her off. I hope
there’s something good for supper!”