"Go up yonder on the bridge and ask Annette why some men marry and some
don't; she'll tell you," I said; and he promptly took me at my word, at
least so far as leaving me was concerned.
A short time after this, just after I had identified the two smokers in
the wicker lounging chairs under the afterdeck awning as Ingerson and
Madeleine Barclay's father, the last truck-load of trunks came. While
the baggage was going into the _Andromeda's_ forehold, Dupuyster,
looking more English than any Briton to the manner born, came lounging
aft and greeted me chirpingly.
"'Lo, old chappie; dashed glad to know you're comin' along, what? Bonty
was just tellin' me he'd scragged you for the voyage. Topping, I'll
say."
"Topping, if you say so, Jerry. How long have you been over?"
"Eh, what?--how long have I been over? I say, old dear--that's a jolly
good one, y' know. But tell me; where is this bally old tub of Bonty's
goin' to sail for? Bonty won't tell us. He's as mysterious about it
as--as----"
Realizing that he was feeling around in his ultra-British vocabulary
for a fitting Anglo-maniacal simile, I helped him out.
"As a bag of tricks, let us say. I don't know, any more than you do,
Jerry. Summer seas in midwinter, and all that, I suppose. What do we
care?"
"Haw! dashed little, so long as the _Andromeda's_ well found in the
provision lockers: eh? what? And Bonty will have seen to that." Then:
"I've been lookin' about a bit for Conetta. Did she come aboard with
you?"