“No; what about her?  Is she safe?  Who picked her up?”

“Wait a minute.  One question at a time,” laughed Merritt.  “She’s safe, all right.  The Dolphin picked her up at sea.  But it will cost you fifty dollars to get her.”

“Fifty dollars!” gasped Sam, turning pale.

“That’s what the skipper of the Dolphin says.  He had a lot of trouble getting a line fast to her, he says, and he means to have the money or keep the boat.”

“Oh, well, I’ll get it from my father easily enough,” said Sam confidently, preparing to swagger off down the street.  “I’ve got to get my boat back and beat Rob’s Flying Fish, and that hydroplane can do it.”

“Can you match that?” exclaimed Merritt to the fat youth, as Sam strolled away.  “Here he was saved from drowning by the Flying Fish only yesterday, and all he can think of this morning is to promise to beat her.  What makes him so mean, I wonder?”

“Just born that way, I guess,” rejoined the stout youth; “and as for the Flying Fish saving him, if it hadn’t been for a certain Corporal Crawford, he—­”

“Here, stow that,” protested Merritt, coloring up.  “I heard enough of that yesterday afternoon,”

As the boys had surmised, Sam’s father was not at all pleased when he learned that his son wanted fifty dollars.  In fact, he refused point blank to let him have it at all.

“That boat of yours has cost enough already, and I’m not going to spend any more on it,” he said angrily, as he turned to his work.

“But I can’t get the hydroplane back if I don’t pay it,” urged Sam.  “I’ve seen the captain of the Dolphin, and he refuses absolutely to let me have her unless I pay him for his trouble in towing her in.”

“I can’t help that,” snapped the elder Redding.  “What have I got to do with your boat?  Look here!” he exclaimed, turning angrily and producing a small memorandum book from his pocket and rapidly turning the leaves.  “Do you know how much I’ve given you in the last two months?”

“N-n-no,” stammered Sam, looking very much embarrassed, and shuffling about from one foot to the other.

“Then I’ll tell you, young man; it’s exactly—­let me see—­ten, twenty, five, three, fifteen and eight.  That’s just sixty-one dollars.  Do you think that money grows on gooseberry bushes?  Then there’ll be your college expenses to pay.  No, I can’t let you have a cent.”

“That means that I will lose my boat and the chance of winning the race at the regatta!” urged Sam gloomily.

“Well, you should have had more sense than to take that fool hydroplane out into a rough sea.  I told you she wouldn’t stand it.  There, go on about your own affairs.  I’m far too busy to loaf about, arguing with you.”

And with this the hard-featured old boat builder—­who had made his money literally by the sweat of his brow—­turned once more to his task of figuring out the blue prints of a racing sloop.