Mr. Donnelle said he was probably just a tramp that had been sleeping in the boat and he didn’t seem to mind much, only he said it would be better to keep the door locked.

“Maybe he might have been a—­” Pee-wee began.

“No siree,” I said.  “We’ve had enough of deep-dyed villains for one day, if that’s what you were going to say.”

“Maybe we’d better track him,” said Pee-wee, very serious.

“Nix on the tracking,” I said, “I’ve retired from the ’detective business, and now I’m going to be cook on a house-boat.”

“We’ll have a good anchor anyway if you make biscuits,” Pee-wee said.

“They’ll weigh more than you do anyway,” I fired back.

And Mr. Donnelle began to laugh.

Well, we didn’t bother our heads any more about the tramp, but I could see that Pee-wee would have been happier if we’d have thought it was the Kaiser or Villa, instead of just a plain ordinary tramp, looking for a place to sleep.  But oh, crinkums, you’ll be surprised when you hear all about that fellow and who he was and I suppose you’d like me to tell you now, wouldn’t you?  But I won’t.

I’ve got to go to camp meeting now, so goodbye, see you later—­

CHAPTER V

LOST

Now I’m going to write until my sister begins playing the piano.  Music and literature don’t mix—­believe me.  There are two cruises in this book—­a big one and a little one.  You can take your pick.  The little one is full of mud and the big one is full of pep.  Anyway you get your money’s worth, that’s one sure thing.

This chapter is about the little cruise.  But first I have to tell you about the house-boat, because it turned out to be our home sweet home for a couple of weeks.  It didn’t only turn out, but it turned in and it turned sideways and every which way.  But I’m not going to knock it.  It got knocks enough going through the creek and up Bridgeboro River.  It knocked into two bridges, and goodness knows what all.  But what cared we, yo ho?  We cared not—­I mean naught.

First Mr. Donnelle showed us through it and it was dandy, only in very poor shape.  It’s shape was square.  But I wouldn’t laugh at it because we had a lot of fun on it.  Inside it had two rooms and a little kitchen and the roof had a railing around it and there was lots of room there.  There was lots of room on the deck too.  And there was a kind of little guard-house, too, to put Pee-wee in if he didn’t behave.  Some of the windows were broken, but I knew we could fix them easily.  All we needed to do was eat some green apples and then we’d have plenty of panes.  There were some lockers too, only one of them was locked and we couldn’t get into it.

I guess the tramp didn’t take anything, because there was nothing missing.  I guess all he took was a look around.  There were some cushions piled on one of the lockers and they looked as if someone had been sleeping on them.