Part 40 (1/2)
”You've said it, Mr. Galbraith.”
The financier smiled and his eyes twinkled beneath the s.h.a.ggy brows that arched them.
”You will have to be getting used to calling me by another name, young man,” he said. ”Remember I am to be your uncle.”
CHAPTER XXII
DELIGHT MAKES HER DECISION
Zenas Henry Brewster sat on the edge of his veranda, his long legs crossed before him with a certain angular grace and his corncob pipe held rigidly between his teeth. Beside him, ranged like sparrows on a telegraph wire, were Captain Phineas Taylor, Captain Jonas Baker, and Captain Benjamin Todd. From the row of pipes a miniature cloud of smoke ascended, but save for the distant pulsing of the sea and the murmur of the wind in the linden near the door not a sound was to be heard through the afternoon stillness. Yet in spite of the tranquillity of the day and the apparent peace of the four figures that gazed so immovably out upon the reach of blue, an electrical current of suspense was evident in the four tense forms. They were not looking at the bay, exquisite as it was in its cerulean beauty. Instead, the head of each man was turned toward the road that skirted the harbor and wound its way between the pines at the foot of the hill where the white cottage stood.
”He'd oughter be comin' pretty soon, hadn't he?” Captain Phineas ventured at last, unable longer to restrain his impatience. ”He said four o'clock in his letter. It must be 'most that, don't you think?”
”Mighty nigh unto it,” replied Captain Benjamin. ”As I reckon it, havin' made the necessary allowances for my watch losin'
three-an'-a-quarter minutes an hour, it should be about four now.”
”It ain't but a quarter of four,” sniffed Captain Jonas with an air of superiority. ”That timepiece of yours, Benjamin, ain't worth the silver that was put into it. What's the use of havin' a watch that keeps you figgerin' backwards an' forards, an' doin' sums all day? I wouldn't be bothered with it.”
Captain Benjamin bridled with indignation.
”I don't see but my watch is good as yours,” retorted he. ”The only difference is I'm addin' from mornin' 'til night while you're substractin'.”
The discomfited Captain Baker frowned.
”Mine comes out even minutes, anyhow,” announced he. ”If it does shoot ahead some, it don't keep me reckonin' in fractions like yours does.
I'd see myself in Davie Jones's locker 'fore I'd go addin'
three-quarter minutes together from sunrise to sunset.”
”Oh, addin' fractions is mighty good trainin' for Benjamin,” put in the peace-loving Captain Phineas, with a chuckle. ”It keeps his arithmetic brushed up. I'll bet you he could beat you at a sum, Jonas.”
The triumphant Captain Benjamin observed a complacent silence.
”Let Benjamin an' his watch alone, Jonas,” drawled Zenas Henry, speaking for the first time. ”Somebody in the house has got to be up on mathematics, an' it may as well be Benjamin as another. I'm only sorry his ticker holds him just to addin'; if it would only make him multiply an' divide some, an' take him into square root 'twould give him a liberal all-round education. Still, there's always hopes it may take a new turn. The last time it went overboard there was indications that 'twouldn't be long before 'twould be leadin' him into algebra an'
the fourth dimension.”
Captain Benjamin grinned at the sally.
”It won't be goin' overboard no more now, Zenas Henry,” responded he serenely, ”'cause since the _Sea Gull's_ got that eel-gra.s.s-proof contrivance hitched to her, there won't be no call for me to be lyin'
head down'ards astern. I'll be settin' up like a Christian in future--all of us will. My soul, but Bob Morton an' Willie Spence did a good job on that boat! It's somethin' to have a young chap with brains like that marryin' into the family! I'll bet there's 'most nothin' on earth he couldn't tackle.”
”You're right!” Captain Phineas chimed in. ”If Delight's got to get married--an' we'd be a lot of selfish brutes not to want her to--she certainly has picked a promisin' husband. You can lose money--fling it away or have it stolen from you--but you can't lose brains.”
”That's so, Phineas! That's so!” Zenas Henry said. ”Besides, 'tain't as if he was takin' her to Indiana. New York ain't fur. Why, I'll stake a catch of mackerel we could fetch up at that Long Island place in the _Sea Gull_.”
”Of course we could, Zenas Henry,” agreed Captain Jonas, flas.h.i.+ng a glance of affection into his friend's face. ”There's no question about it. Take a good clear day an' the sea runnin' right, we could make it without a mite of trouble. Long Island wouldn't be anything of a cruise. No place that we can sail to in our own boat is fur away.”
A listener of discrimination might have detected in the dialogue a note of a.s.sumed optimism and suspected that the four old men seated like images on the piazza rail were trying to buoy up one another's courage, and in the a.s.sumption he would not, perhaps, have been far wrong.
”What do you s'pose this Galbraith has up his sleeve, Zenas Henry, that he should be comin' over here?” Captain Benjamin Todd speculated, during a lapse in the conversation. ”He has some scheme in mind, you can be sure of that.”