“Good-bye two dollar bill,” he said, “it was between those two other pages. That’s why there was a stain on the right page in the book. There was a stain on the bill made by the oar-lock and when the page and the bill blew over, the fresh oil on the bill kind of stamped itself on the left hand page. _You_ didn’t damage the book. _You_ only damaged the bill. It was the _breeze_ that damaged the book—see?”
“Believe me! I’ll be responsible,” I told him.
“It’ll come to grief some day,” I told him.
“And it’s lucky I got that book out of the library,” he said. “There was your two bucks tucked away all nice and neat between the pages. It was just where Jim Hawkins was starting away on the ship.”
“Narrow escape,” I said, “hey? If you hadn’t taken the book out just when you did, _good night_, the ship might have started and good-bye to my two dollars.”
“And all the time I was saying Jim Hawkins was honest and a good friend and all that, and all the time he had my two bucks.”
“Believe me I wouldn’t trust that fellow with a postage stamp,” Westy said.
Laugh! Oh, boy, I thought I’d die laughing—and Westy, too.
That’s the reason I’ll never trust a gentle breeze. In books you find all kinds of nice things about gentle breezes, but look out for them, that’s what I say. Whenever I leave my bathing suit on the grass to dry, I lay a good big rock on it, you can bet. I’d trust Skinny with a hundred dollars, I would, and Westy too, but gentle breezes—Nix. They’re so plaguy sly and sneaky like.
Westy and I went and bought a dandy copy of _Treasure Island_ for the library. It cost us a quarter more than my two dollars, but we should worry.
Now I have to tell you one other thing that happened before we got started on our cruise, especially because it has a lot to do with our cruise.
The next morning we all went back to Northside Woods to tie up the saplings and drag them over to the river. Then we were going to use a rowboat and tow them down and maybe float some of them down. I told you about our old launch, but it’s too shallow to use a launch up as far as Northside Woods.
[Illustration: “WE TOWED THE SAPLINGS AND STARTED DOWN STREAM.”]
All the fellows were there except Skinny, because the doctor made him stay home on account of being all played out. I bet that doctor had some scrap with him. One thing sure, Westy and I stuck together. By noontime we had all the stuff hauled over to the river and some odds and ends of kindling wood besides, to take in the house-boat.