Jack—­well, everything seemed to go wrong with him.  “Where is Jack?”—­“Oh, bother, over at the barn!” The answer soon became a byword.  The barn was at some distance from the house, and what a time there was in summoning the boy!  The method was sufficiently telling, one would think, since it informed the whole neighborhood when he was wanted.  It consisted in blowing the horn for him.  Now, this was no common horn, but the voice of a giant imprisoned in a cylinder.  Jack could have explained it upon the principle of compressed air, for he was studying natural philosophy; but Mr. Sheridan’s Michael once described it in this way: 

“Sure, it’s the queerest thing that ever ye saw!  Ye just jam one piece of tin pipe into another piece of tin pipe, as hard as ye can; an’ it lets a wail out of it that ye’d think would strike terror to the heart of a stone and wake the dead!”

Whatever effect it might have upon granite or ghosts, however, Jack was usually so engrossed with the boat as to be deaf to its call.  If Mrs. Gordon wanted him to harness a horse for her in a hurry, there was no use in sounding a bugle blast; she might try again and again, but in the end she would have to send some one over to him with the message.  If he was sent up to the village on an errand, or told to do anything which took him away from his work, he either objected, or complied with a very bad grace.

“I’ll tell ye one thing,” said Mary Ann the cook, one day when neither Jack nor Jim would go to the store for her, though it would only have taken a few minutes to make the trip on the bicycle,—­“I’ll tell ye one thing, young sirs.  Ye can’t expect to have a bit of luck with that boat ye’re buildin’.”

“No luck!  Why not, I’d like to know?” inquired Jack.

“Because all four of ye boys are neglectin’ what ye ought to do, and takin’ for this the time which by right should be spent on other things; because ye’ve given yer fathers and mothers more cause to find fault with ye durin’ the last two or three weeks than for long before, all on account of it; because ye’re none of ye so good-natured as ye used to be.  I’ve heard that havin’ a bee in the bonnet spoils a body; but faith I think a boat on the brain is worse.  There’s one thing, though, that my mind’s made up to.  I’ll make no more cookies for young gentlemen that are not polite and obligin’.”

Here was a threat!  But, though the boys were secretly somewhat disconcerted, they would not give Mary Ann the satisfaction of seeing that either her prophecy or warning had any effect upon them.

“Pshaw, Mary Ann, you’re so cross to-day!” declared Jim.

“It isn’t always the good people who seem to have the best luck,” continued Jack, braving it out.  “And how can you tell whether we’ll succeed or not?  You are not a fortune-teller.”