It was a boat badly battered, like its owner.

"If the red paint could be got off Tim's nose and put on his boat, it
would be better for both," thought Wort.

Old Tim was fixing a net in the stem of his boat. Young Tim was in another
part of the dock, hunting amid the muddy flats for relics.

"There she is!" said Wort to himself. He had detected a dipper in the
bottom of the boat. "Now is my chance," thought Wort. He reached down to
the coveted dipper. It was a venerable piece of tinware.

"That's too old to be ours," reflected the daring Wort. "Let me turn it
over and see if there is a mark on the bottom. Bah, an old worm! That is
not our dipper."

"Here, you thief! what are you meddlin' with that property for?" roared a
voice.

It was Old Tim. His face was red as a boiled lobster, and as he crooked
his bare arms and rested them on his hips, they looked like the claws of a
mammoth lobster ready to crawl out and seize any offender.

"Guess I'll go," thought Wort, and off he hurried to tell the club his
ill-success, and that their detective in search of a thief had been called
one.

A few minutes later Juggie exclaimed to the disconsolate circle, "Dar's de
organ-grinder."

It was indeed he hurrying along the lane and turning a troubled face
toward the barn, for no monkey came with him. Had he lost his friend from
the far South?

"He gone!" said the grinder, as he reached the boys. "You sheen him?"

"Seen your monkey?" asked Sid.

"Yes, yes! You sheen my leetle mun-kee?"

"Why, no."

"You--you--you," and the grinder swept the circle to find out if any one
had seen the lost favorite. No one had seen him.

"O, O dear!" lamented the grinder excitedly.

Poor organ-grinder! his face was wrinkled as badly as that of his missing
assistant when attempting to pick a very bad nut.

"You go--find--my--mun-kee?"

"O, yes," said the president, "we will hunt. Come on."

They scattered, tumbling over fences, climbing shed roofs, diving into
corners, shouting, yelling, and stirring up the neighborhood thoroughly.
It did no good. "My munkee" refused to be found.

The boys went to school and returned, meeting in the barn chamber once
more.

"There's some business to be done, Mr. President," said the "securtary,"
in a very formal way. But where was the president? He was no more to be
found than the monkey. A little later, Wort Wentworth was looking out of
the window.

"Here comes Sid," he shouted.

Sid was ru