"Be a good chap and let me in, won't you?
My folks are going out to California this Summer and I don't want to go, and they'll let me do anything I like.

Tell you what, Steve.

If you'll take me I'll buy something for the boat.

I'll make the club a present of--of a tender or an anchor or whatever you say!" Steve found it especially hard to turn Wink down, because he liked the fellow, just as everyone else did.

Wink was eighteen and had been five years getting through school, but he was a big, good-hearted, jovial boy, and, as Steve reflected, one who would be a desirable companion on such an adventure as had been planned.