Edward Paxton, with nothing special to do, was lying on one of the
cushioned seats of the Firefly, humming his favorite tune. Mechanically
he felt in his pockets for a roll of bills.
"All earned," he said softly, smiling into the deep blue sky with an
expression of ineffable content. "Pretty good for a new hand," he added,
listening with pleasure to the quiet music of the waves lapping the
sides of the boat.
He drew the money from his pocket and began to count it.
"I beg your pardon," said a voice just over him.
Edward looked up quickly. It was his cousin, Clarence, flicking at his
duck trousers with his everlasting rattan cane. "By Jove," added
Clarence with a somewhat startled expression on his face, "by Jupiter,
but you resemble my cousin Edward! Georgiana told me, but I didn't
altogether believe her. I've really never seen your face well by
daylight before, you know."
Edward did not trust himself to reply.
"I came down here," Clarence went on, "to make you an humble apology. It
was awfully nasty of me, you know, that day to have spoken as I did. I
hope it's all over and forgotten now, old man. Isn't it?"
"Yes," said Edward, thrusting his hands in his pockets and turning his
face toward the lake.
"How is business at present? Pretty good?" went on Clarence in his most
ingratiating tone, climbing into the boat without being asked and
sitting down beside Edward.
"Pretty good."
"I imagine you earn quite a good deal now, don't you, taking out parties
every day? And I notice you are working on the motor cars at night,
too."
Edward shrugged his shoulders. He was not surprised at what was coming
next.
"I had a beastly stroke of luck last night, old man. I went over to the
Casino with some fellows and lost more than I happened to have on hand
just now. What do you say to lending me a small sum at a high rate of
interest?"
"Why don't you borrow from your cousin?" asked Edward.
"By Jove--but of course you haven't heard the news, old man, have you,
not having any way to hear it. Edward's played the deuce with my old
Grandmamma and she's disinherited him. Sent him packing, bag and
baggage, don't you know."
"What----" the engineer began and then turned his face away to hide his
expression of amazement, horror, and alas, fear.
"I'm the only heir, now, don't you know. Of course, Georgiana counts for
nothing. I'm the old lady's favorite grandchild and I shall be as rich
as Croesus, I tell you. You can safely lend me any amount. I'll pay you
back twice over. Grandmamma can't last much longer now. She'll go off
with apoplexy in one of her fits of rage. She's bound to, don't you
know. She'll not last a year."
Edward's shoulders suddenly began to shake with irrepressible laughter,
not at the thought of the ending Clarence had pictured for his
unfortunate grandmother, but at Clarence's unexampled assurance.
"It is something of a joke, old man, isn't it? But about that money, you
know," he was beginning, while he drew a package of cigarettes from his
pocket, offered one to Edward which was refused, and lit another
himself. "By Jupiter, if here isn't the old woman herself," he exclaimed
laying the cigarette down on the seat. "Were you looking for me,
Grandmamma?" he asked, jumping off and removing his hat with a flourish.
"No, I'm not looking for you. I'm looking for a boat with a first-class,
reliable engineer in it, who will take me out on the lake without
upsetting me into the water."
"Here is the one, Mrs. Paxton-Steele," said Elinor, trying not to smile,
as she helped the old lady into the Firefly with Clarence's assistance.
"This is the boat and the engineer both. Will you take us for a little
ride, Edward?" she asked, giving the boy a meaning glance.
"Let me out first," demanded Clarence, who had no mind to go boat riding
that afternoon with his aged relative.
"No such thing," snapped his grandmother. "Stay where you are. You know
how to run a motor-boat and if one engineer fails, we shall have another
at hand. Stay where you are, but don't talk. I want to hear Mistress
Elinor Butler talk about her home in America, and what methods her
parents used to rear her into such a fine, spirited young woman, who is
not afraid to speak out when she wants to."
Elinor blushed. She had planned other things for this boat ride and this
incorrigible old eagle was upsetting all her schemes. Both grandsons
looked up with interest. Never had they heard their grandmother speak in
this way before.
Edward started the boat and presently they were sailing smoothly over
the pleasant waters of Lake Worth. Mrs. Paxton-Steele, who was enjoying
the ride extremely, had hardly noticed the engineer who had pulled his
cap well down over his eyes and bent over the engine. Clarence, bored to
extinction, looked sullenly toward shore, and took furtive puffs from
his cigarette which was concealed between times on the seat beside him.
The English lady had become reminiscent. She was telling Elinor a really
thrilling story of a shipwreck in which she had nearly lost her life
some fifty years before. Elinor remembered afterwards that she had an
indescribable feeling of waiting for something. As the tropical shores
receded and the striped awnings on the lawn of the Duffy villa became
spots of white, she exchanged a long glance with Edward, who smiled
slightly and began whistling softly the air he had composed to "The
white swan spread his snowy sail."
After all, life was an exceedingly pleasant thing to a perfectly
able-bodied and quite talented young man, even if he were disinherited
by an irascible old grandparent.
"It all proved to me," finished Mrs. Paxton-Steele, "that courage--"
(Clarence laid down his cigarette and began to listen and Edward turned
his face toward her) "real courage, is the most admirable trait of
character that----"
One of those inexplicable little puffs of wind which people who sail in
boats on a lake must learn to expect, gave the old lady's hat brim an
impudent flop, tossed Edward's cap to the other end of the boat, and
blew Clarence's cigarette dangerously near the gasoline tank. But this
same frolicsome breeze was the means of saving two lives. Both boys rose
at the same moment and moved to the other end of the boat, one to get
his cap and the other his cigarette which he thought had blown that way.
The next instant there was a loud explosion. The boat was shaken as a
leaf in the wind, then with a convulsive shiver lay still in the water,
like a creature stricken to death. A puff of smoke followed the noise
and after that a tongue of flame shot high into the air and began
licking its way hungrily along the seat.
Elinor found herself lying across Mrs. Paxton-Steele's lap and the two
boys were flat in the bottom of the boat. The old lady's face had turned
a deep purplish red and she sat looking at the flames with a strange,
stupid expression.
Then up jumped Clarence, gave one look at his grandmother, another at
the burning boat, and leaped into the water. With long, even strokes he
made for the shore. As his grandmother watched him, a light came into
her eyes and she tried to speak, but she could only mutter in a thick
unnatural voice:
"Cow-ad-cowad-cowad!"
In the meantime Elinor was throwing water into Edward's face. He had
been stunned by the explosion but consciousness came back to him with
the first dash of cold spray on his cheeks, and he sat up. Perhaps, in
his dazed condition, he had forgotten that his grandmother and Elinor
were in the burning boat and only saw the flames leaping high into the
air. At any rate, without looking behind him, he jumped to the seat,
stood for an instant poised on the side of the boat, and dived into the
water as his cousin had done. When he rose again to the top and started
to strike out toward shore, he glanced back over his shoulder. What he
saw was his grandmother's countenance, still that strange purplish
color, and Elinor sitting beside her, holding her hand with a very
haughty, proud expression on her face.
With three strokes he was at the side of the boat.
"Oh, what have I done?" he cried as he drew himself on board again.
It all happened very quickly, and Clarence was still hardly twenty yards
from them, when Edward, kneeling in the bottom of the launch, drew out
the fire extinguishers.
"It's the gasoline that's burning now," he said in a quiet, steady
voice. "If we can only put that out we're all right."
Wrenching the cap off the top of the torpedo shaped object, he rushed to
the burning end of the boat and poured it over the flames. There were
only two extinguishers, however, and the fire still continued to lick
its way along the cushions after all the fluid had been used.
Elinor drew out a striped Roman blanket that Miss Campbell was in the
habit of using to keep her knees warm when sailing, and thrust it into
his hands.
They dipped it into the lake and throwing it over the obstinate little
flames which still remained, extinguished them completely.
"It's all out," announced Edward, looking quite old and grizzled with
his eyebrows and front hair burned to an ashen gray.
"I'm afraid your grandmother has had a bad shock, Edward," said Elinor.
"We must get her to shore as quickly as possible."
"Grandmamma, dear grandmamma," he exclaimed, kneeling beside her with a
sudden impulse of affection which he would have lavished on her long
before with a little encouragement.
The poor old woman lifted one hand heavily and put it on his head.
"Brase-boy sedward-my granson," she tried to say.
"There comes the other launch," cried Elinor as a boat shot out from
shore. And it did not reach them any too soon, for the Firefly had a
hole pierced in her side and was already fast filling with water.
It was not an easy matter to transfer Mrs. Paxton-Steele from one boat
to the other, but it was finally accomplished, and towing the stricken
Firefly after them, they made for the shore.
Nobody had remembered Clarence until they heard him hail loudly. He was
evidently very tired and had been resting on his back when they reached
him. But he clambered in and plucked up breath sufficient to say:
"I had hoped to get to land and bring a boat back myself, grandmamma."
"Cowad-an-liar," she mumbled and closed her eyes.