"Well, the boat is all right, I see, and I am the fellow that needs
to take a lesson, not the boat. As I said before I believe you
could get speed out of a canal-boat."

"You can get speed out of this one if you will study it a bit, and
not think only of using up gasolene. Besides, there is fun to be had
out of the boat, even if you do not go like the wind all the time."

"Yes, I suppose there is, but I like to go fast, and I guess every
boy does. If one does not there is generally something the matter
with him."

Herring was not only smarting under not being allowed to go out with
the rest, but also from the knowledge that Jack was a better boatman
than he was, and that the boat which he had made himself, for this
was known to all the boys now, could make better time than the
expensive one his father had bought him and he said to Merritt, who had
no one to go out with him, and was not allowed to run Herring's boat:

"I'd like to fix that boat of Sheldon's so that he couldn't run it.
He'll be crowing over me all the time, and that is something I won't
stand. It'll be an easy thing to get at it at night."

"Of course," agreed Merritt. "Make a hole in his tank, do something
to the engine or cut a hole in the bottom. Anything will do. Then
we can say that the boat was no good in the first place, and every
one will believe you. That's easy."

"I won't say anything about it. Wouldn't he suspect something if I
was to speak about it? You don't show any sense!"