The Adventure Club Afloat | Page 4

too many. We can't afford to hire a cook, you know; at least, I can't; and someone will have to look after that end of it. Who can cook?"
"I can't!" Perry made the disclaimer with great satisfaction.
"No more can I," said Joe cheerfully. "Let Neil be cook."
"I guess we'll all have to take a try at it. I dare say any of us can fry an egg and make coffee; and you can buy almost everything ready to eat nowadays."
"Tell you who's a whale of a cook," said Perry eagerly. "That's Ossie Brazier. Remember the time we camped at Mirror Lake last Spring? Remember the flapjacks he made? M-mm!"
"I didn't go," said Steve. "What sort of a chap is Brazier? I don't know him very well."
"Well, Oscar's one of the sort who will do anything just as long as he thinks he doesn't have to," replied Joe. "If we could get him to come along and tell him that he--um--simply must not ask to do the cooking, why--there you are!"
"Merely a matter of diplomacy," laughed Steve. "Well, we might have Brazier instead of Hanford--or Neil."
"Why not have them all if the boat will hold six?" asked Joe. "Seems to me the more we have the less each of us will have to do. I mean," he continued above the laughter, "that--um--a division of labour--"
"We get you," said Perry. "But, say, I wish you'd stop talking about it, fellows. I'm going to be disappointed when I wake up and find it's only a bright and gaudy dream."
"It isn't a dream," answered Steve, "unless you say so. I'll go, and I'll guarantee to get the Cockatoo without expense other than the cost of running her. If you and Joe can get your folks to let you come, and we can get hold of, say, two other decent chaps to fill the crew, why, we'll do it!"
"Do you honestly mean it?" demanded Perry incredulously. "Gee, I'll get permission if I have to--to go without it!"
"How about you, Joe?"
"Um--I guess I could manage it. How long would we be gone?"
"A month. Two, if you like. Start the first of July, or as soon after as possible, and get back in August."
"How much would it cost us?" inquired Perry. "I'm not a millionaire like you chaps."
"Wouldn't want to say offhand. We'd have to figure that. That's another reason for filling the boat up, though. The more we have the less everyone's share of the expense will be."
"Let's have the whole six, then, for money's scarce in my family these days. Let's make it a club, fellows. The Club of Six, or something of that sort. It sounds fine!"
"Take in another fellow and call it The Lucky Seven," suggested Joe.
"We might not be lucky, though," laughed Steve. "I'll tell you a better name."
"Shoot!"
"The Adventure Club."
CHAPTER II
THE CLUB GROWS
And that is the way in which it happened. It began in fun and ended quite seriously. They sat up in Number 17 Sumner until long after bedtime that night, figuring the cost of the expedition, planning the cruise, even listing supplies. The more they talked about it the more their enthusiasm grew. Perry was for having Steve send a night message then and there to his father asking for the boat, but Steve preferred to wait until he reached home and make the request by word of mouth.
"He would just think I was fooling or crazy if I telegraphed," he explained. "Tomorrow we'll try to dig up three other fellows to go along, and then, as soon as we all get home, we'll find out whether our folks will stand for it. You must all telegraph me the first thing. Don't wait to write, because I must know as soon as possible. I dare say there's work to be done on the Cockatoo before she's ready for the water, and we don't want to have to wait around until the end of July. The fun of doing anything is to do it right off. If you wait you lose half the pleasure. Now you'd better beat it, Perry. It's after ten. If you meet a proctor close your eyes and make believe you're walking in your sleep."
Perry reached his own room, on the floor above, without being sighted, however, and subsequently spent a sleepless hour in joyous anticipation of at last finding some of those adventures that all his life he had longed for. And when he did at length fall asleep it was to have the most outlandish dreams, visions in which he endured shipwreck, fought pirates and was all but eaten by cannibals. The most incongruous phase of the dream, as recollected on waking, was that the Cockatoo had been, not a motor-boat at all, but a trolley-car! He distinctly remembered that the pirates, on boarding