“There’s the man you want,” he snorted, “that man over there giving his money away.”
Chauncey Gale was at that moment engaged in constructing a check that ran well into four figures. He paused, however, with his hand on the way to the ink-bottle and listened for a moment with proper respect. Then he said, quite serenely:
“I wonder if you couldn’t conveniently go to hell for about three years. Perhaps by then I’ll have time to listen to you. You notice we’re pretty busy, this morning.”
I smiled now, recalling how the human seal had flopped backwards over a box of cod-fish and narrowly missed pitching overboard in his anxiety to get ashore. There had been no further interference, and no offered encouragement. We were leaving it all behind, now; the narrow, busy, indifferent world. There were no salutes, and if there were any flags, or waving, I did not see them. Nobody had been down to see us off, and impudent tugs steamed by and splashed water at us, just as if we were going out for a day’s sail, and would be back in time for the roof gardens.
Somewhat later I was joined by Edith Gale. It is customary to say “as fresh as the morning,” when referring to a fair woman at such a time, but, rare as the morning was, I could not have paid it a finer tribute than to have compared it to Edith Gale.
She came forward and leaned over at the other side of the bow-sprit.
“How pretty the little rainbow is this morning,” she said, looking down.
“Yes, I have been accepting it as an omen of success.”
Edith Gale laughed.
“I hope it doesn’t mean that we are pursuing a rainbow. We never quite capture it, you see.”