"Where will I find the paper, Mr.--Mr.--I mean, sir?"

"Smith my name is. John Smith of Smithville. You'll find all the papers
and books at a news-stand on the lower deck. There's a candy-stand
there, too, such as will interest you two more than the papers, likely;"
he answered with another smile.

They started down the stairs leading from the main saloon to the lower
part of the boat, and not until they had reached the news-stand did
either of them remember that she hadn't brought her purse nor asked
which paper their new acquaintance desired.

"Oh! dear! Wasn't that silly of us! And we're almost to West Point,
where my cousin Tom's a cadet! He promised to be on the lookout for us,
if he could get leave to go to the steamboat landing. I wrote and told
him about our trip and he answered right away. He's Aunt Lucretia's only
child and she adores him. Hasn't spoiled him though. Papa took care
about that! If I go back after our pocket-books I may lose the chance to
see him! So provoking! I wish now we hadn't bothered ourselves about
that old man. If he was able to come aboard the boat and go up those
stairs to the deck he was able to buy his own old papers. So there!"
cried Molly, stamping her little foot in her vexation.

West Point cadets are given few permissions to leave their Academy for
social visits, so that Tom had never been to the Rhinelander school
where rules were also so strict that Molly had been but once to see her
cousin in his own quarters. Until he went to the Point and she to school
in the hill-city a few miles further up the river, they had lived
together in her father's house and were like brother and sister. The
disappointment now was great to the loving girl and Dorothy hastened to
comfort, by saying:

"Never mind, Molly, you stay right here. See! they're fixing that
gang-plank again, at this very part of the deck. You stand right
outside, close against the rail but where you won't be in the men's way
and, if he's there, you'll surely see him.

"I'll go back and get the purses. Where did you lay them?"

"Hum. I don't know. I can't exactly think. You handed me yours, I
remember, when you stooped to pick up his crutch he'd knocked down. Ah!
Now I know. My hands got so warm and your pocketbook was red and I
thought it would stain my new gloves. So I just laid them down on the
bench beside him. You'll find them right there beside him. You can ask
him which paper, then, and I say, Dolly Doodles,