We were so much excited about the Sea Monster suddenly having a big
black hole in it that we almost forgot to take the bottle when we
went home. We did forget Aunt Ailsa's hatpin, and Greg had to run
back for it, because he can run faster than any of the rest of us,
and Captain Lewis held the ferry for him. Everybody leaned out from
the rail and peered up the landing, because they thought it must be
a fire or the President or something. They all looked awfully
disappointed when it was only Greg, with the black necktie still
around his head and Aunt's hatpin held very far away from him so
that it wouldn't hurt him if he fell down. He tumbled on board just
as the nice brown Portuguese man who works the rattley chain thing
at the landings was pushing the collapsible gate shut, and Greg
gasped:

"I brought--the moidores--too!"

But Jerry collared him and pulled the necktie off his head. Jerry
hates to have his relatives look silly in public, but I thought Greg
looked very nice.

We chucked the bottle overboard from the upper deck, just when the
_Wecanicut_ was halfway over. The nice Portuguese man shouted up,
"Hey! You drop something?" but we told him it was just an old bottle
we didn't want, and not to mind. We watched it go bob-bobbing along
beside an old barrel-head that was floating by, and we wondered how
far it would go, and if it would leak and sink. The tide was exactly
right to carry it outside, if all went well.

"Perhaps," said Greg, when we were halfway up Luke Street, going