Joe shook his head. "They don't do you any good," he said sadly.

"Don't they! My grandmother--"

"Bother your grandmother! How do we go to sea, Steve? Swim or--or how?"

"We get my father's cruiser," replied Steve simply. "She's a
forty-footer and togged out like an ocean-liner. Has everything but a
swimming-pool. She--"

"Nix on the luxuries," interrupted Perry. "The simple life for me.
Let's hire an old moth-eaten sailboat--"

"Nothing doing, Sweet Youth! If I'm to risk my life on the heaving ocean
I want something under me. Besides, being seasick is rotten enough,
anyhow, without having to roll around in the cock-pit of a two-by-twice
sailboat. That cruiser listens well, Steve, but--um--will papa fall for
it? If it was my father--"

"I think he will," answered Steve seriously. "Dad doesn't have much
chance to use the boat himself, and this Summer he's likely to be in the
city more than ever. The trouble is that the _Cockatoo_ is almost too
big for three of us to handle."

"Oh, piffle!"

"It's so, though. I know the boat, Perry. She's pretty big when it comes
to making a landing or picking up a mooring. If we were all fairly good
seamen it might be all right, but I wouldn't want to try to handle the