and I told him to come over and see us. Here he is now!" and he pointed
to a boy, about his own age, who was coming up the walk.

"Hello, Sammie!" greeted Russ. "Want to blow bubbles?"

"Yes," was the answer, and a pipe was found for Sammie. He seemed to
know how to use it, for he blew bubbles bigger than any one else.

"What's inside the bubbles?" asked Violet, who simply had to ask another
question. "Is it water?"

"No, it's air," said Sammie. "If you could blow a bubble big enough to
get inside of you could breathe the air, just like outside. Only when it
was all breathed up you'd have to get more."

"Would you, really?" asked Rose.

"Sure," Sammie answered.

"How do you know?" Violet questioned.

"'Cause my father's a sea captain, and he takes divers out on his boat
and they go down after things that sink. The divers have air pumped to
them, and they wear a big thing on their heads like a soap bubble, only
it's called a helmet. This is pumped full of air for the diver to
breathe."

"Oh, tell us about it!" begged Laddie, laying aside his pipe.

"Did your father ever go down like a diver?" asked Russ.

"Yes, once or twice. But now he just helps the other men go down. He's
been a sea captain all his life, and once he was shipwrecked."

"What's shipwrecked?" asked Margy.

"It's when your ship hits a rock, or runs on a desert island and sinks,"
said Sammie. "Then you have to get off if you don't want to be drowned.
And once my father was shipwrecked on a desert island that way, and they
found a lot of gold."

"They did?" cried Russ.

"Sure! I've heard him tell about it lots of times."

"Oh, is it a story?" asked Rose.

"No, it's real," said Sammie.

"Tell us about it," demanded Laddie.

"Well, I don't 'member much about it," Sammie said. "But if you come
over to my house, my father'll tell you about it. Only he isn't home now
'cause he's got some divers down in the harbor and they're going to
raise up a ship that's sunk."

"Couldn't you tell us a little about it?" asked Russ. "Did your father
dig gold on the desert island?"

"Yes, he dug a lot of it," said Sammie. "He's got one piece at home now.
It's yellow, just like a five-dollar gold piece."

"Where was the island?" asked Violet.

"Maybe we can go there," suggested Laddie. "That is, if it isn't too
far."

"Oh, it's terrible far," said Sammie. "It's half-way around the world."

"That's too far," said Russ with a sigh.

"Maybe we coul