He found further cause for wonder as he started off in the car with the French chauffeur for the boat dock, at the conduct of Jean himself.
For the man appeared to be a wholly different person. His face was all smiles, and there was a jaunty air about him as though he had received good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired. He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held his breath more than once.
“What's the matter—in a hurry?” he asked Jean, as they narrowly escaped a collision.
“Oh, no, monsieur, but this is the way I like to drive. It is much more—what you call pep!”
“Yes,” mused the colonel to himself, “it's pep all right. But I wonder what put the pep into you? You didn't have it when we started out. Some French dope you take, I'll wager. Well, it may put pep into you now, but it'll take the starch out of you later on.”
Jean left the colonel at the dock, whither Shag had already made his way, coming in a more prosaic trolley car from The Haven, and soon they were ready to row down the inlet in a boat.
“Shall I call for you?” asked Jean, as he prepared to drive back.
“No,” answered the colonel, “I can't tell what luck I'll have. We'll come home when it suits us.”
“Very good, monsieur.”
And so the colonel went fishing, and his thoughts were rather more on the telephone talk he had overheard than on his rod and line.