"Yes," said the Watermelon and slipped it into his pocket.
"Have one with me before you go," said Bartlett, pushing a glass and the
bottle across the table.
The Watermelon filled his glass and raised it. "To Billy," said he.
"To Billy's happiness," amended Bartlett.
Maine is a prohibition state, but the Watermelon had been there before
and knew just where and how to obtain what he was looking for. With the
bottle in his pocket, he sought the beach and made his way up it to some
secluded place where he could drink in peace and out of the heat of the
sun. A sea-gull flew wheeling gracefully by to the distant cliffs, the
waves, long, purring, foam-flecked, ran indolently up the gleaming
sands, broke with a gurgling splash of seaweed and tumbled stones and
ran back to meet the next one. The ocean stretched limitless before him
and behind rose the rocks, hiding him completely from the sight of land.
With a grunt of dissatisfaction, he sat down and drew the cork of the
whisky bottle.
As the day advanced, the sun crept around the headland until it streamed
unchecked upon the Watermelon, sprawled, drunk and warm and dirty in the
lee of the rocks. The combined heat of the sun and the poison he had in
him, called by courtesy whisky, grew unbearable, and he rose in drunken
majesty to find some cooler place. The sun would soon have thrown long
shadows on the beach, but the Watermelon could not wait for that. He
must get cool at once, and in the waves splashing, gurgling, laughing,
breaking at his very feet, he found a suggestion. Where could one get
cool if not in the sea itself? A steam yacht far away like a streak of
white, was seen creeping slowly landward, but the Watermelon did not
trouble about such a thing. He began to undress, solemnly, stubbornly,
with the one thought to get cool.
The yacht, _Mary Gloucester_, was a gay little bark, all ivory white and
shining brass work. A brightly striped awning covered the deck, there
were large, comfortable chairs, with many-colored pillows and ribbons
and chintz, and daintily arranged tables to assuage one's thirst and
offer cooling bodily comfort on a hot day.
The _Mary Gloucester_ was named after a poem of Kipling's, and her owner
was explaining this fact, ensconced gracefully, if solidly, in a
many-cushioned chair, her feet a bit awkwardly on the rest before her, a
fan in one hand and a small, fat, white, woolly dog on her lap, his fore
feet on the railing, his mouth open and his tiny red tongue flapping
moistly from between his teeth.
"Whom do you love the more," asked Bertie Van Baalen, "Kipling or this
angel child?" and Bertie sought to pull one fluffy white ear near his
hand. But the little dog snarled angrily and snapped sharply at the
hastily withdrawn fingers.
"Ah, the duckems, naughty man shan't tease him," crooned the lady,
slapping at Bertie with the fan, while the little dog turned again to
the sea.
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Armitage," said Henry Bliven solemnly. "Tell us
truthfully, whom do you love the better, Kipling or the blessed
duckems?"
"Do not hesitate or seek to spare either of their feelings," urged
Bertie.
Mrs. Armitage laughed, fat, contented, placid. "Oh, you silly boys,
comparing a poet and a dog, a blessed little doggie."
"I know it's hard on the dog," agreed Henry, gracefully launching a
smoke wreath upward from his fat, red lips, moist like a baby's. "No
dog would care to be compared with a thing so far beneath him as a poet,
but all the same, are you a sport or an intellect?"
"An intellect?" questioned the lady, wrinkling her brows and gazing
puzzled at the youth in the chair beside her.
"Are you, in other words," explained Henry, "of intellectual or sporting
tendencies?"
"Think," warned Bertie, "before you answer. Kipling, a great poet,
author of sentiments that will stir mankind for all ages, sentiments
that will ennoble, strengthen--"
"Do you know," confessed the widow with the gleeful naivete of a child,
"I like Kipling because he's so bad. He says such wicked things." She
nodded and glanced audaciously from one youth to the other.
Henry reached wearily for his glass on the table beside him and Bertie
Van Baalen sighed heavily. "You women! You make us bad. Don't you know
you do? You want us bad, so we are--anything to please you beauteous
creatures."
"I don't want you _men_ bad, just poets," explained the widow, fanning
herself slowly, cheerfully.
Henry waved the digression aside. "Now, tell us frankly, truthfully,
black and blue, cross your heart, do you prefer a small, dyspeptic,
overfed, snapping bundle of cotton wool which is, for the sake of
euphemism, called a dog, to one of the greatest minds of the day?"
"Yes," said Bertie. "Suppose we sat here now, and you had the blessed
angel, mother's pet, and one volume of Kipling complete, the only book
of his in the world, and the only one there could ever be, the only book
in which we could hand on to our children and our children's children
such sublime thoughts, the only book, mind you, and if you had to throw
one or the other overboard, a piece of sticking plaster or the greatest
poet of modern times, which would it be?"
"If I threw my blessed pet over, would you go after him, Bertie?"
demanded the widow, to whose mind a question of grave import had just
presented itself. "Henry, would you? You know how I love my dainty
little kitty kit, would you save him from cruel death for me? For my
sake?"
"No harm," said Henry with feeling, "shall befall the angel child while
I live to protect it--her--him."
"For your sake," said Bertie, "I would die."
"Then," said the widow placidly, "I would sacrifice my own for the sake
of posterity. For you would rescue him for me and you wouldn't an old
book."
"Ah, no," protested Bertie, "that was not our proposition. Neither the
book nor the latest thing in worsted--"
There was a splash, a gurgle and a horrified scream from the widow, as
with a sudden lurch of the boat, the little dog lost his balance and
fell overboard.
"Oh, my precious, my lamb," cried the widow. "Bertie, save him for me."
"Yes, yes," declared Bertie, hanging over the rail and watching the
struggling dog in the water below. "Yes, yes, certainly."
"Henry," pleaded the widow. "If you love me--"
"Trust me," said Henry soothingly, hiding a gleam of satisfaction in his
mild blue eyes. "I will have the boat stopped."
The widow's daughter and chaperon appeared in the companionway, flushed
and sleepy. "Mama, what _is_ the matter?"
"Caroline, my precious lamb," and the widow motioned dramatically
seaward. "Henry, you said--"
"I will," said Henry. "I will have the boat stopped."
"I will do that," cried the widow. "You jump overboard and save him."
Caroline yawned and raised her soft white hands to her tumbled hair.
"Do save him, Bertie, I'm not equal to the task of comforting mama, just
now."
Bertie looked at his immaculate yachting clothes and hesitated.
"Ah, you do not love me," cried the widow. "Oh, my baby, my own."
"I love you so," said Bertie solemnly, "I refuse to leave you in your
grief even for a moment."
A long white arm shot over the crest of a tumbled wave and was followed
by a man's head and long, thin body. The man swam well and quickly and
was making straight for the now swimming dog.
"A rescue, a rescue," cried Henry, and added softly to himself, "Oh,
poppycock!"
*CHAPTER XXV*
*AS HE SAID HE WOULD*