e Rogue's Wharf.--See page 44.]

CHAPTER V.

THE ROGUE'S WHARF.

"All aboard!" exclaimed Benjamin, and so saying he bounded into the
boat that lay at the water's edge. "Now for a ride: only hurry up, and
make the oars fly;" and several boys leaped in after him from the
shaking, trampled quagmire on which they stood.

"We shall be heels over head in mud yet," said one of the number,
"unless we try to improve the marsh. There is certainly danger that we
shall go through that shaky place, and I scarcely know when we shall
stop, if we begin to go down."

"Let us build a wharf," said Benjamin, "and that will get rid of the
quagmire. It won't be a long job, if all take hold."

"Where will you get your lumber?" inquired John.

"Nowhere. We don't want any lumber, for stones are better," answered
Benjamin.

"It is worse yet to bring stones so far, and enough of them," added
John. "You must like to lift better than I do, to strain yourself in
tugging stones here."

"Look there," continued Benjamin, pointing to a heap of stones only a
few rods distant. "There are stones enough for our purpose, and one or
two hours is all the time we want to build a wharf with them."

"But those stones belong to the man who is preparing to build a house
there," said Fred. "The workmen are busy there now."

"That may all be," said Benjamin, "but they can afford to lend them to
us awhile. They will be just as good for their use after we have done
with them."

"Then you expect they will lend them to you, I perceive; but you'll be
mistaken," answered Fred.

"My mode of borrowing them is this,--we will go this evening, after
the workmen have gone home, and tug them over here, and make the wharf
long before bedtime;" and Benjamin looked queerly as he said it.

"And get ourselves into trouble thereby," replied another boy. "I will
agree to do it if you will bear all the blame of stealing them."

"Stealing!" exclaimed Benjamin. "It is not stealing to take such
worthless things as stones. A man couldn't sell an acre of them for a
copper."

"Well, anyhow, the men who have had the labour of drawing them there
won't thank you for taking them."

"I don't ask them to thank me. I don't think the act deserves any
thanks," and a roguish twinkle of the eye showed that he knew he was
doing wrong. And he added, "I reckon it will be a joke on the workmen
to-morrow morning to find their pile of stones missing."

"Let us do it," said John,