“Let’s go to Wecanicut.”

We’d never gone to Wecanicut alone, but I couldn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t.  Captain Lewis, on the ferry, always watches over every one on board with a fatherly sort of eye, and Wecanicut itself is a perfectly safe, mild place, without any quicksands or tigers or anything that Mother would object to.

“I tell you what,” Jerry said, “let’s make it a real adventure and take some costumes along.  We never had any proper ones there before.”

I thought this was a rather good idea, and after breakfast we went up to select things that wouldn’t be too bothersome to carry, from the Property Basket.

“Is it to be pirates or smugglers or what?” Greg asked, poking in the corner where he keeps his own special rigs.

“Explorers, my fine fellow,” Jerry said, “exploring after a submerged city.”

“Oh!” Greg said, evidently changing his ideas.

Jerry and I went down to ask Katy to make us some lunch.

“Just food; nothing careful,” Jerry explained.

“What are ye goin’ to do with it?” Katy asked.

Jerry was all ready to say, “Eat it, of course,” but I saw what Katy meant and said: 

“We’re going out; it’s such a nice day.  We thought we’d take our lunch with us to save Lena trouble.”

“Don’t get streelin’ off too far,” Katy said, “Where are ye goin’?”

“Oh, down by the shore,” I said, which was not quite the whole truth, because of course it was not our shore, but the shore of Wecanicut I meant.  Yes, all of it was my fault.

Just as we were putting the lunch into the kit-bag Greg came staggering downstairs, trailing along the weirdest lot of stuff he’d collected.

“What on earth is all that?” Jerry asked him.  “Drop it and get your hat.”

“It’s—­my costume,” Greg explained, out of breath from having dragged all the things down from the attic.

“Glory!” Jerry said, “You don’t suppose you’re going to lug all that rubbish on to the ferry, do you?  Not while I’m with you, my boy.”

“You couldn’t begin to put on half of it, Gregs,” I said.  “Let’s weed it out a little.”

“And look sharp about it,” Jerry said, jingling the money for the ferry in his pocket.

Greg finally took a Turkish fez thing, and a black-and-orange sash, and a white brocade waistcoat that Father once had for a masque ball ages ago.  We hadn’t time to tell him that it was no sort of outfit for an explorer, so we bundled the things up with our own and stuffed them all into the kit-bag on top of the lunch.

Luke Street has a turn in it just beyond our house, so neither Katy nor Lena could have seen which way we went; anyhow, I think they were both in the back kitchen, which looks out on the clothes-yard.  I thought perhaps we should have told Katy where we were going after all, but Jerry said: 

“Fiddlesticks, Chris; we’re not babies.  I suppose you’d like Katy to take us in a perambulator.”