Geraldine nodded.
“Did you ever see anything so ugly? She looks as though she would spit out death from every little crevice.”
“She’s a fine boat,” Granet muttered. “What did your brother say she could do?”
“Thirty-nine knots,” Geraldine replied. “It seems wonderful, doesn’t it?”
The officer in charge of the pinnace smiled.
“Our speeds are only nominal, any way,” he remarked. “If our chief engineer there had the proper message, there’s none of us would like to say what he could get out of those new engines.”
He turned and shouted an order. In a moment or two they swung around and drew up by the side of the vessel. Ralph waved his hand to them from the top of the gangway.
“Well done, you people!” he exclaimed. “Hullo Granet! Have you brought the girls down?”
“In the most wonderful racing car you ever saw!” Geraldine told him, as they climbed up the gangway. “We shouldn’t have been here for hours if we had waited for the train.”
“I met Captain Granet this morning by accident,” Olive explained, as she stepped on deck, “and he insisted on bringing us down.”