In the cold grey dawn of the great sailing day, shadowy figures began
going aboard the _Skipping Goone_. The city delivered them up. Then
gradually the city awoke, and the waterfront went about its usual
occupations.
As morning advanced, the _Skipping Goone_ became a setting for some of
the wildest scenes in the history of opera in America. Red-eyed sopranos
were bumped by stevedores; a stout lady whose forte was contralto
matrons, went madly about in search of a trunk. Sailors were puttering,
while Captain Bearman croaked out sullen orders through his beautiful
flaming whiskers. Finally, the lord of all commotion, Xenophon Curry,
who was sure, yes desperately and perspiringly sure, half the important
things had been forgotten.
And of course Flora Utterbourne was on hand to see them off. She walked
right aboard the _Skipping Goone_, her face smilingly full of every good
wish for the impresario as she stood beside him on deck conversing with
unbroken animation, yet always in that fluid, gliding manner which he
knew so well now. Yes, Flora in her speech flowed on like a gracious
river. And there was just a faint sadness behind her frank gaze, which
meant that this departure was going to leave an unexpected emptiness.
However, if there was sadness in her gaze, there was sadness also in the
impresario’s. Xenophon Curry, though borne up by unquenchable optimism,
realized that it was going to be surprisingly hard to say good-bye—maybe
for years or a lifetime—to the lady who had asked him the way to Crawl
Hill.
The _Skipping Goone_ looked small and a little pathetic this morning.
What was in store for them in the wide, wild ocean?
A crowd was waving on the wharf. The last perfervid farewells had been
said, and the singers went about nibbling bon voyage chocolates, defiant
of _mal de mer_. There were flowers, there was even confetti. The drab
old schooner had taken on a very festive look indeed—almost like the
barque of Cleopatra!
Every hand clutched a handkerchief, every handkerchief sought its niche
in the vibrating atmosphere. A tenor tried his voice behind the deckhouse
and emerged singing _Auld Lang Syne_. The last hawser was cast off. A tug
hooted.
And so it was that the _Skipping Goone_ in her brave new paint, bearing a
mixed cargo of merchandise and songbirds, gay with flutter and bloom, was
trundled off down the bay and out upon the heaving vast, bound for parts
remote and adventures cloaked in an impenetrable veil.