however, and subsequently spent a sleepless hour in joyous anticipation
of at last finding some of those adventures that all his life he had
longed for. And when he did at length fall asleep it was to have the
most outlandish dreams, visions in which he endured shipwreck, fought
pirates and was all but eaten by cannibals. The most incongruous phase
of the dream, as recollected on waking, was that the _Cockatoo_ had
been, not a motor-boat at all, but a trolley-car! He distinctly
remembered that the pirates, on boarding it, had each dropped a nickel
in the box!

Fortunately for the success of the Adventure Club, the next morning held
no duties. In the afternoon the deciding baseball game was to be played,
but, except for gathering belongings together preliminary to packing,
nothing else intervened between now and the graduation programme of the
morrow. Hence it was an easy matter to hold what might be termed the
first meeting of the club. Besides the originators there were present
Messrs. Fairleigh, Hanford and Brazier. After Steve had locked the door
to prevent interruption, he presented to the newcomers a summary of the
scheme. It was received with enthusiasm and unanimous approval, but Neil
Fairleigh and Oscar Brazier sadly admitted that in their cases parental
permission was extremely doubtful. George Hanford, whose parents were
dead and who was under the care of a guardian, thought that in his case
there would be no great difficulty. The other two viewed him a trifle
enviously. Then, because one may always hope, they had to hear the
particulars and each secretly began to fashion arguments to overcome the
objections at home. Finally Oscar Brazier inquired interestedly:

"Who is going to cook for you?"

"Oh, we'll take turns, maybe," answered Joe. "Or we might hire a cook."