"My clerk says he is the boy who saved Pendleton from immediate arrest."
"_Saved_ him?" quoted Ruth. "Don"t you mean that he balked the intention of the firm to arrest the suspect and have the matter cleared up at once?"
"You split hairs like any lawyer," laughed Mr. Howbridge. Yet he stared at the girl thoughtfully for a long minute. Then: "I see your point. I am going to wireless my office a message. Perhaps a closer examination into the life and works of Israel Stumpf might prove important."
The little folks were, of course, immensely interested in the sending of that message, although they did not know its purport. Tess and Dot wandered about the decks of the steamship in their furs, Dot with the Alice-doll hugged close to her breast, and stared at everything they saw new; and, in Dot"s case at least, asked innumerable questions.
When the _Horridole_ got out into the Gulf Stream where the air and sea were both warmer-much warmer than at Boston-the two little girls began to enjoy themselves enormously. They did not have to bundle up so much and the sea-air was delightful.
Its effect upon Ruth and Agnes was equally efficacious. They soon stopped the "Hark, from the tomb a mournful sound!" as Neale had called their separate coughs. Ruth was soon able to walk about. Already Agnes, leaning on Neale"s arm at first, paced the upper deck, around and around, "to get an appet.i.te," she said.
"Don"t do it, Aggie," begged Neale O"Neil, after watching her at dinner the second day. "Remember what devastation you are causing. This is a rich steamship line; but profits won"t stand many such pa.s.sengers as you are proving to be."
"I know it!" cried his friend delightedly. "One would never think I had been eating at home, but would believe I had been saving up for this occasion. Do ask the steward for some more tongue, Neale. I"m ashamed to."
""Every part strengthens a part,"" said Neale, quoting Mrs. MacCall. "I don"t know about that tongue, Aggie. You weren"t behind the door when they were giving tongues out."
"Is that so!" and she tossed her head.
"But, still," he added, his eyes twinkling, "this is the tongue that never gossiped, so perhaps it won"t hurt you to have a little more," and he summoned the waiter.
"I like your impudence!" Agnes exclaimed. "Do you think I am in training to occupy Miss t.i.tus" exalted position when I get to be her age?"
"Don"t know. Can"t tell. You are getting kind of dried up and ancient, Aggie. I"m worried about you," teased the boy.
"I"m not worried about you," said she, tossing her head again. "I know just how you are going to turn out, Neale O"Neil."
"How?" he inquired curiously.
"Bad."
"I"m bound to be a bad man, am I?"
"You are. You are a tease, and you"re careless, and you don"t care what happens when you are out for fun, and you are reckless with your money, and-and--"
"So far," interposed Ruth who had heard this, and she said it rather soberly, "you have related your own shortcomings to a nicety, Agnes.
There is little use in the pot calling the kettle black."
"Well! I declare! Isn"t it the result of my a.s.sociation with this boy that my own character is so bad?" Agnes demanded.
"You are both incorrigible," declared Ruth, and thereafter paid no attention to them.
Agnes was feeling so much better by this time that she was ready for any gayety and almost any stroke of mischief. She was about with Neale O"Neil all the time; and usually the little ones were in their company.
So that Mr. Howbridge had not to fret himself in the least regarding Tess and Dot.
Ruth and Luke were together most of the time, for aboard ship Professor Keeps did not need his young a.s.sistant. Ruth thought the bald-headed professor with the very p.r.o.nounced near-sighted squint, rather an interesting man. He was still in the thirties; but he was so dry of speech and look that it was difficult not to think of him as much older.
He was interesting to talk with-or, rather, to listen to. Luke said what Professor Keeps did not know about botany, the flowers of the field themselves had forgotten!
"You speak almost as uproariously as Neale does," said Ruth, smiling. "I never knew you to be so hilarious before, Luke-not since I have known you."
"Why shouldn"t I be light-hearted?" he returned, smiling. "This is my first regular job. Of course, I worked at that hotel for part of last summer, and so showed Neighbor that I really mean to be self-supporting just as soon as I can be. But being a hotel clerk did not rise out of my college work.
"This is something different. Neighbor is just as pleased as Cecile and Aunt Lorena. I don"t suppose I shall be a professor of botany; but this experience will help, and while I am helping Professor Keeps I"ll be getting full credit in my regular course. Shan"t have much tutoring to do to catch up."
"It is certainly nice that you can be with us," sighed Ruth happily. "I wish Cecile might have come."
"Aunt Lorena needs her. And whisper! I believe Cecile has a new interest near home."
"No!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ruth, her eyes shining.
"Yes, ma"am! Cecile has a "gemplum friend." And he"s an all right fellow-"Gene Barrows. He has a garage, and a business, and red hair. And he is going to make a good thing of all three," chuckled Luke.
Agnes, as she regained her strength, regained her volubility and charm as well. She was a very pretty girl, and in spite of her youth she always attracted attention from both young and old. She was especially popular with the men and boys of the pa.s.senger list.
She showed preference for none of them, however, save Neale O"Neil, yet some of the girls of her own age aboard began, before long, to consider that the blond Kenway girl gathered altogether too many of the boys about her. The boys gathered about Neale, too, but the envious ones would not see that. In fact, having set their futile traps for Neale and failed to snare him, they were all the angrier with helpless Agnes.
"Who is that girl who stares at me so hard whenever she pa.s.ses, Neale?"
Agnes asked languidly, as she lolled in her steamer chair on the third morning out of Boston. "Have I seen her somewhere before, or do I owe her money?"
"Hush, my child!" urged Neale, grinning. "You know not of whom you speak in so careless a manner."
"Is she somebody?" asked Agnes, with increased interest.
"She is. Her father is one of the high muck-a-mucks of the Black Pennant Line-owns oodles of stock. And she is from the coldest stratum of Back Bay society-pos-i-tive-ly."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Who is that girl who stares at me so hard whenever she pa.s.ses?", Agnes asked.]
"Really, Neale?" demanded Agnes. "The real people? What"s her name?"
"Nalbro Hastings."
"My goodness me! Not those Hastings?" exclaimed Agnes, but lowering her voice and sitting up to look after the girl in question.
"She is the real goods," said the slangy Neale, his eyes twinkling in amus.e.m.e.nt over Agnes" excitement. "John Y. Hastings is her male par-y-ent."
"Hush!" whispered Agnes. "She is going to turn around."
"Then I bet the earth stops whirling on its axis, and the moon follows Miss Hastings" course. She is going to play hob with the next tide."
"Do be still!" commanded Agnes, worriedly. "I had no idea she was Miss Hastings. And how I looked at her!"
Neale coughed behind his hand. "You looked at her just now as though you felt yourself to be quite as good as she is. Have you had a change of heart, Aggie?"
"Do behave!" commanded Agnes again, and now she was really angry. "I had no idea! If she gives me another chance--"
"Help! Help!" crowed Neale. "Ath-thith-tance, pleathe!"