Once he paused to wipe his forehead, an occupation which gave him opportunity to survey a nearby shore. Upon that shore he observed a lady walking. The lady was alone. The boatman smiled. He believed he could easily understand why the lady was alone, provided her tongue had not been paralyzed. He remembered it as a tongue that fended people off.
As he looked at the slowly moving figure it came to a halt. At the distance and in the dusk the boatman could not be sure that she was looking at him, yet he rested on his oars, waiting.
He saw something wave—a scarf or a handkerchief perhaps. He smiled again behind his shabby beard. Then he headed his boat toward the shore.
Not until he was close to the island did he turn his head, and then with the remark:
"Did you call me, ma'am?"
"What's the trouble now?" she asked sharply as a rejoinder.
"No trouble at all that I know of."
"Why are you rowing?"
"Oh! You mean about the boat? Why, my batteries have gone dead."
"How long since you replaced the cells?"