“I thought he acted like that sort of a character.”

“Well, that’s what he is.  He’s got half a dozen schemes under way, and he hasn’t been in town over a month.  I wonder you haven’t seen or heard of him.”

“I’ve been too busy over my photo telephone.”

“I suppose so.  Well, this fellow Peters struck Shopton about a month ago.  He bought the old Wardell homestead, and began to show off at once.  He’s got two autos, and this big motor boat.  He always goes around with a silk hat and a flower in his buttonhole.  A big bluff—­that’s what he is.”

“He acted so to me,” was Tom’s comment.  “Well, he isn’t going to scare me.  The idea!  Why, he seemed to think we were in the wrong; whereas he was, and his man knew it, too.”

“Yes, but the poor fellow was afraid to say so.  I felt sorry for him.”

“So did I,” added Tom.  “Well, Kilo is out of commission for the present.  Guess we’ll have to finish our outing by walking, Ned.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.  But it makes me mad to have a fellow act the way he did.”

“Well, there’s no good in getting mad,” was Tom’s smiling rejoinder.  “We’ll take it out of him legally.  That’s the best way in the end.  But I can’t help saying I don’t like Mr. Shallock Peters.”

“And I don’t either,” added Ned.

CHAPTER VI

A WARNING

“There, she’s about right now, Ned.  Hold her there!”

“Aye, aye, Captain Tom!”

“Jove, she’s leaking like a sieve!  We only got her here just in time!”

“That’s right,” agreed Ned.

Tom and his chum had managed to get the Kilo to Ramsey’s dock, and over the ways of the inclined marine railway that led from the shop on shore down into the river.  Then, poling the craft along, until she was in the “cradle,” Ned held her there while Tom went on shore to wind up the windlass that pulled the car, containing the boat, up the incline.

“I’ll give you a hand, as soon as I find she sets level,” called Ned, from his place in the boat.

“All right—­don’t worry.  There are good gears on this windlass, and she works easy,” replied Tom.

In a short time the boat was out of the water, but, as Tom grimly remarked, “the water was not out of her,” for a stream poured from the stuffing-box, through which the propeller shaft entered, and water also ran out through the seams that had been opened by the collision.

“Quite a smash, Tom,” observed the boat repairer, when he had come out to look over the Kilo.  “How’d it happen?”

“Oh, Shallock Peters, with his big red boat, ran into us!” said Ned, sharply.

“Ha, Peters; eh?” exclaimed the boatman.  “That’s the second craft he’s damaged inside a week with his speed mania.  There’s Bert Johnson’s little speeder over there,” and he pointed to one over which some men were working.  “Had to put a whole new stern in her, and what do you think that man Peters did?”