y the sluggish Sylph.

"That was a little too close, my son," said Mrs. Sedley.

"We are perfectly safe, mother, are we not?"

"We are; but, Frank, you should never expose yourself, and especially
not others, to needless peril."

"We were in no danger."

"I think you were."

"The Zephyr is under perfect control; she feels the slightest turn of
the rudder."

"Suppose Uncle Ben's boat had swerved a little from her course?"

"There was no fear of that."

"You do not know. If it had, we might have been drowned, many of us at
least."

Frank looked serious.

"Ask Uncle Ben what he thinks about it."

"Let fall," said Frank.

The boys began to pull again, and the coxswain steered so as to bring
the Zephyr in a circle round the Sylph.

"Now we will keep alongside, but at a safe distance," said he, as he
laid her course parallel with that of his companion.

The band was preparing to play the tune which Frank had requested. The
Sylph was making very good progress through the water, and the rowers
kept pulling with a very slow stroke.

"You were careless, Frank," said Uncle Ben, when the band stopped
playing.

"Do you think so, Uncle Ben?"

"Very careless; in the navy they would have put you in irons for it.
There arn't no need of risking the lives of your crew in that way. If
it had been to save the life of a feller-creter, or anything of that
sort, there would have been some sense in it."

"I didn't think there was any danger," returned Frank, not a little
troubled by the veteran's censure.

"I'm sailin' right afore the wind, you see, and the boat swings fore
and aft, like a French dancing-master. If she had a swayed only a
leetle grain, we might all have gone to the bottom."

"I never will be so careless again."

"You were all-fired careless, Frank," said Charles Hardy.

Fred Harper could not help turning round and looking the speaker full
in the face to reprove him for his interference.

Frank felt the rebuke of his friend, and was not a little hurt by the
reproach, coming as it did from one whom he had used with so much
lenity--for whom he had so strenuously interceded with his father.

"Hush up! Charley," said Fred in a low tone. "Don't you know any better
than that?"

The band now struck up "Old Folks at Home."

"Let us sing," said Frank.

"So I say," replied Tony.

"Wait till they come to the chorus," added Fred.

At the right moment the boys commenced the chorus, and the effect was