"Aren't you coming, Dinah?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as they all started
for the lower part of the houseboat.
"No'm, I'll jest stay up heah an'--an' git a breff ob fresh air," said
the colored cook.
"Come on, children," called Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh. "We'll very
soon find out what it was."
They went down off the deck, to the passageway between the kitchen and
dining-room. This place was like a long, narrow hall, and on one side
of it were closets, or "lockers," as they are called on ships. They
were places where different articles could be stored away. Just now,
the lockers were filled with odds and ends--bits of canvass that were
sometimes used as sails, or awnings, old boxes, barrels and the like.
Mr. Bobbsey opened the lockers and looked in.
"There isn't a thing here that could make a crying noise, unless it
was a little mouse," he said, "and they are so little, I can't see
them. I guess Dinah must have imagined it."
"Let's listen and see if we can hear it," suggested Mrs. Bobbsey.
All of them, including the children, kept very quiet. Snap, the trick
dog, was still gnawing his bone in the kitchen. They could hear him
banging it on the floor as he tried to get from it the last shreds of
meat. Snoop, the black cat, was up on deck in the sun.
"I don't hear a thing," said Mrs.
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