Next morning we hauled up our anchor and left the Thimbles early.
Rameses III did not have breakfast ready until we were well out in the
Sound and had headed for Point Judith. It was another beautiful day. The
Sound was as smooth as a piece of glass and there wasn’t a thing to do
but be lazy, and there are times when I like being lazy a lot. Catty
said he felt like he could lay back in a chair on deck and look at the
water and snooze for a month. But I knew he couldn’t. Snoozing wasn’t in
his line. No, sir, says I to myself. In half an hour that kid will be
down taking the engine to pieces or doing something else to get us both
into trouble. That’s the kind he is. He can’t sit still, and if there
isn’t a thing to do, why, he invents something.
This time it was the engine room, and we hadn’t been through breakfast
half an hour when he was down there sure enough, gassing with Tom, the
engineer, and learning how to run the thing. By noon he knew all the
parts of the engine by their nicknames, and it was all Tom could do to
stop him from commencing with a screwdriver and a monkey wrench to find
out what it looked like inside. He was daubed with grease from head to
foot where he’d tried to crawl into the shaft tunnel to see how the
clutch worked, and his fingers were blistered from monkeying with the
hot cylinders. But he was happy, and what more can you ask.
I wasn’t het up much over engines, but I did want to learn how to steer,
so I hung around the bridge until Mr. Browning explained the compass to
me and let me steer a while. Mr. Topper just sat on the cushion behind
the wheel looking like somebody had poisoned his oatmeal, and kept his
eyes fastened on the black yacht that followed us out of the Thimbles
and was about half a mile behind us now.
We made pretty good time that day, keeping just off the Connecticut
shore, and rounding Point Jude, and then cutting across to Newport. We
got there just before six o’clock. I was kind of excited, because I was
never in a naval base before, and I was never anywhere where
millionaires were thick like I’d heard they were in Newport. I don’t
know which I was hottest to see—a warship or a multi-millionaire.
The _Albatross_ nosed into the harbor past the big coast defense guns
that nose out over the rock, and past the old fort, and then we turned
to the right around a kind of an island with officers’ houses on it, and
cast our anchor near the station of the New York Yacht Club. I enjoyed
it a heap, and so did Catty. The place was full of destroyers anchored
side by side like sardines in a sardine tin. There were dozens of them,
and a couple of cruisers and other boats of the navy.
We had hardly cast anchor when the black yacht poked her snout around
the island and anchored about a hundred yards from us. Mr. Topper
snorted and Mr. Browning shrugged his shoulders, but Catty and I—we
_knew_. We knew that yacht was after us and Mr. Topper and meant
business of some kind, and we made up our minds we would keep our eyes
pretty wide open to see what it was.
After supper we went ashore with Mr. Browning and walked around looking
for millionaires, but we didn’t see any to speak of. Catty claimed he
saw one, but I didn’t believe it, because he didn’t wear a silk hat and
hadn’t any diamonds to speak of. Catty claims millionaires don’t always
wear silk hats and diamonds, but I know better. Anybody that can afford
them, wears them; I should, and everybody’s kind of like me, I’ll bet.
If I was a millionaire I’d _sleep_ in a Prince Albert coat and patent
leather shoes, and when I got up in the morning, the first thing I’d put
on would be a dozen diamond rings. No sense having all that money if you
can’t kind of dazzle folks that haven’t.
The dinghy of the black yacht followed us in, and Catty and I kept our
eyes on the man that came in with it. He was kind of big and wide with
black hair and real nifty yachting clothes, white pants and all, and
buttons with anchors on them. I got a good close look at him. Just as we
were turning to go back to the boat Catty saw him go into the telegraph
office on the corner and he nudged me.
“Let’s see what he’s up to,” said he, and then he says to Mr. Browning,
“Wait just a minute at the boat for us, will you, Mr. Browning? We’ll be
right there.”
“All right. Don’t get lost, and don’t let a millionaire bite you,” says
he.
So we hiked back, and there was our man standing at the counter writing
a message. Catty nosed up beside him and made believe _he_ was writing a
message, but he wasn’t. Pretty soon the man handed in his message, and
Catty and I came away.
“Well?” says I.
“Got it,” says he.
“What did it say?” says I.
“It was to a man named Jonas P. Dunn in New York, and it said: ‘Followed
them to Newport. Can’t lose them. Will act when advisable.’ And his name
is House. That’s all.”
“It’s something,” says I. “I don’t like that part that they’ll act when
advisable. It doesn’t sound cheerful. Wonder how they’ll act, and when
it’ll be advisable.”
“That,” said Catty, “is for us to find out.”
It began to cloud up and get cold by the time we were getting back to
the _Albatross_, and pretty soon it began to rain. The yacht began to
roll a little, not so much because of the waves but on account of us
laying at anchor with the wind blowing against us. I was pretty sleepy
and so was Catty, so we went below and fixed up our berths and rolled
in. It was the finest motion to go to sleep by that I ever felt. Regular
rock-a-bye-baby, and before I knew it I was dreaming about pirates and
desert islands and thingumbobs. I don’t know how long I slept, but all
at once something waked me up and I lay still, kind of scairt. Then
there came a sort of grinding bump and the _Albatross_ rolled like a
rolling pin, and I landed right out in the middle of the floor. Catty
got there about the time I did.
“What’s the matter?” says he.
“Don’t know. Feels like we’re wrecked,” says I.
“How’s a boat going to get wrecked that’s lying at anchor?” says he.
“How should I know?” says I, and then Mr. Browning dashed out of his
stateroom and up on deck, and we dashed after. It was raining like all
git out. The wind was driving the rain along in a straight line, and it
was so dark you couldn’t see the back of your neck. Just as we got there
another bump came that threw me flat on the deck.
“Anchor’s dragging,” shouted Mr. Browning. “We’re drifting down onto
somebody.”
Well, I didn’t know what to do, nor how serious it was, and I did know
it was mighty cold and wet and uncomfortable, so Catty and I huddled
together and waited to see. In a few minutes our eyes got used to the
dark so we could see we had drifted down onto a big schooner yacht, and
the two boats were bumping and grinding together and wearing off each
other’s paint. Mr. Browning and Naboth and Tom and Rameses III were
running around with fenders, and somebody was yelling at us and calling
us pet names, and Naboth was yelling names back.
“Hey, you fat-bellied sardine can, what you rampagin’ down on top of us
fer, hey? A-scrapin’ our paint off on your dirty nose.... You
gasoline-stinkin’ bum-boat!” bellowed a voice out of the dark.
“Shet up,” howled Naboth, “you slab-sided lobster pot. You ornery
garbage scow. Think you kin take up all the harbor with your ol’
she-camel? Sheer off there! Sheer off, or we’ll jest up and ride right
over the top of ye.”
There were all kinds of compliments, and then Mr. Browning told Tom to
start the engines, and ordered Naboth to see to the anchor. We got under
way, and backed off from the other boat about a hundred yards and
dropped anchor again. “There,” says Mr. Browning, “hope she holds this
time.” So we started to turn in again, but before we could get below
Naboth and Rameses III had started a quarrel about a rope fender that
had got itself dropped overboard. Naboth claimed Rameses should have
held the end of the rope, and Rameses claimed Naboth just let go out of
pure meanness. In a minute they had forgotten the fender and veered
around to Rameses III’s coffee, which Naboth claimed was made out of
shavings and varnish, and from there they touched on legs and hair and
relatives and laziness, and moved on to Jonah’s whale, and how much of
an iceberg floats under water, and what makes the Gulf Stream hot—and
then we turned in and let them go it.
In the morning when we woke up it was still cold and drizzly, and the
wind was blowing a gale, so Mr. Browning said we’d stay right there in
the harbor for the day and wait to see if the weather didn’t improve. It
didn’t seem very bad in there, but I guess he thought the open water
outside would be pretty rough. There was a lot of it out there to get
rough, anyhow. So we got fixed to loaf all day and wait for the wind to
go down.
There were some books down in the cabin, and I got settled to read, but
Catty wasn’t in a reading humor. He wanted to do something, and finally
he made up his mind to take the little dinghy and row ashore. So I went
along with him. We walked all over Newport in the rain, and bought some
post cards to send home, and some candy. Then we stopped in the yacht
club station, and there was a book on the table called Lloyd’s Register
of Yachts, or something like that, and we looked in it, and there was
the name of every yacht in America with its dimensions and who owned it.
We found our boat, and then Catty says, “Let’s see who _owns_ the
_Porpoise_.” So we looked it up; it belonged to Jonas P. Dunn.
“H’m,” says Catty, “that’s the man the telegram went to.”
“So it is,” says I.
“Then he’s the boss pirate,” says Catty, “and these fellows here are
only hired men, like you might say.”
“Sure,” says I, “but what of it?”
“We might find out,” says he, “if Topper ever heard of a man named
Dunn.”
“And then what?”
“Why,” says Catty, “then we’d know.”
“Know what?”
“If he’d ever heard of him,” Catty says with a grin.
Well, we loafed around some more, and then rowed back to the
_Albatross_, and it was _some row_ right into the teeth of the wind.
Catty had rowed in, and it was my turn to row back. I kind of wondered
why he volunteered to take the first turn, but I saw now. He’d figured
out the wind would blow us into the dock, but it would take tough work
to get us back.
“You’re a sweet one,” says I.
“What’s the matter?” says he, as innocent as a pint of cream.
“Why,” says I, “rowing in so’s I’d have to row back against this wind,
and bust my spine.”
“Um,” says he, kind of satisfied with himself, “it pays to kind of keep
your eyes open. But you’ll learn, Wee-wee. A few years knocking around,
and you’ll learn to think it over before you take the first proposition
offered you.”
We got back safe, but I was some tuckered out, and went down in the
cabin where Mr. Topper was reading a book and smoking.
“Say, Mr. Topper,” says Catty, “did you ever hear of a man by the name
of Jonas P. Dunn?”
“Jonas P. Dunn!” says he, jumping up like he’d been shot, “Jonas P.
Dunn! Where’d you hear that name?”
“Why,” says Catty, “it’s just the man’s name that owns the
_Porpoise_—that black yacht over yonder.”
“His boat!... His boat!... Are you sure?”
“Dead certain; Lloyd’s Register says so.”
Well, sir, Mr. Topper jumped for Mr. Browning’s door and hammered on it
and Mr. Browning, who was taking a nap, hollered out kind of cross to
know what the racket was, and Mr. Topper says to come out quick. So out
came Mr. Browning.
“D’you know who owns that black yacht?” says Mr. Topper kind of sharp.
“No.... Who?... And what of it?”
“Jonas P. Dunn,” says Mr. Topper.
Mr. Browning whistled and then bit his lip.
“Does look as if there was something to worry about, doesn’t it?”
“Jonas P. Dunn is the man I’m more afraid of than anybody else in the
world.”
“And that’s his yacht?”
“It says so in Lloyd’s.”
“Well, if that is Dunn’s boat, and I guess it must be, then we want to
go mighty easy. Dunn is the kind of a man who sticks to a thing he
starts after. He’s got all the money in the world, and he doesn’t care
much how he gets more.... Um.... We’ll have to give that yacht the
slip.”
“Let’s run now,” says Topper.
“We’d have a lovely time out there in this gale,” says Mr. Browning. “We
might make New Bedford, and we might make Davy Jones’ Locker. No,
there’ll be no running out before tomorrow. When we get up into Buzzards
Bay we can give them the slip some place—among among the islands. Lots
of places to dodge in and hide.”
“I wish we were there this minute,” says Mr. Topper.
“Well,” says Mr. Browning, “I don’t mind owning I feel that way myself.”