For Granted
A COLORFUL STORY OF A PICTURESQUE ISLAND COLONY WELL KNOWN TO MANY AMERICAN TRAVELERS
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
THE streets of Port Linton were empty under the brazen glare of the sun, so that Captain Vincey’s steps rang loud. They were unsteady, too. The heat came up from the white coral road in tremulous waves, and worried him. The blue sea and the blue sky, the white buildings and the white roads, and the great, fierce, brassy sun all dazzled him. He dropped his stick with a clatter, and from under the swing door of Willie’s Bar a dog ran out, sniffed at the stick, and ran back again.
“It’s the heat,” said Vincey to himself, as he straightened up.
But in his heart he was a little frightened by the giddiness, the surging in his head, and by the theatrically empty look of the world. He could not quite remember what had brought him out at this hour, but his footsteps were certainly directed toward the club.
He decided not to go there, and went on down the hill—a big, swaggering man, in a rumpled white linen suit and a green-lined helmet.
“A t-touch of the sun,” he said to himself.
He realized now that he could not very well go home alone, though he wanted to go home. He had had no lunch. He had sat in his office, looking over some papers, with a bottle of whisky on the desk.