boys meet up with
young Kelso. That was as fishy a trick as I ever saw pulled."

Rick looked at the old sea captain suspiciously. Cap'n Mike was having
a hard time to keep from laughing. Then Rick had to grin himself.
"Don't laugh too loud," he reminded. "If Scotty hadn't pushed you,
you'd be smelling like a week-old herring yourself."

"I know," Cap'n Mike said. "Thanks." He threw back his head and
roared.

Rick laughed, too, but when Cap'n Mike doubled up with mirth, he began
to grow a little irritated. "It isn't that funny," he said, a little
tartly.

Scotty chuckled. "Maybe this is what amuses him." He reached over and
plucked a small menhaden from the breast pocket of Rick's jacket.

"Dangdest place to carry fresh fish I ever saw," Cap'n Mike said, and
went off into gales of laughter again.

Rick took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. "Well," he said,
grinning, "I'm sure glad those menhaden weren't whales."

They drove home to Whiteside with all windows wide open and newspapers
on the seat to protect the car, but even so, the stench of oily fish
made Rick feel a little queasy.

"We can't go to Spindrift like this," he complained. "Tell you what,
I'll take the wood road that goes down by the tidal flats. Then one of
us can cross over, get clean clothes for both of us and some soap and
towels. We can go to Walton's Pond, take a swim, scrub off the fish,
and change."

"Good idea," Scotty agreed. "But these coats and pants will have to be
dry cleaned."

"That's easy. There's a night service door at the cleaners where we
can just push them through."

Scotty chuckled. "You won't get any thanks for that. The whole dry
cleaning place will smell like a fish market before morning."

"We'll wrap them up good in plenty of newspapers."

"Where do we get the papers?"

"From the _Morning Record_. I want to go there, anyway."

Scotty gave him a sideways glance. "Got an idea?"

"Just a glimmer." Rick's lips tightened. "And I'll tell you something
else. Until now, this case was just sort of interesting for itself,
but now I have a personal interest. I think the Kelsos are at the
bottom of it."

"And we owe them a debt," Scotty finished. "Carrots, anyway. What do
you suppose he dumped the scoop on us for?"

Rick shrugged. "Sheer poison meanness. And weren't we warned not to go
to Seaford?"

An hour later, when they had cleaned up, the boys returned the car to
Gus, apologized for the faint but definit