Not the sea-birds sweeping so low over the water that their white feather brooms raised a dust of silver in the sunlight; not the motley crew upon the ship half as clear to the girl’s vision as that little figure with the flags in his hat patroling a deserted street in the dawn. “One reason people depend on you so is, I suppose, because they see as I do, it isn’t only that you’re good to some particular one. You’d be good to anybody.”
“Oh, would I!”
“Just as you gave up your Fourth of July to be watchman for the neighbor’s boy.”
“How did you get hold of that yarn?”
“Barbara—”
“Well, look here”—he moved his square shoulders uneasily, like one in an ill-fitting coat. “Look here, if you’re thinking of trying to make a hero out of me—it isn’t any earthly—”
“Hero? Nonsense. We were talking about talismans,” she said, with recovered gaiety. “I haven’t brought along a machine of any sort, and I haven’t got a black cook. Not even a banjo! But I’ve got a friend!” she triumphed. “So I can’t be scared now any more than the rest of the wild adventurers.”
“Then you were scared?”
“Oh, here she is! Mrs. Locke! This is ‘the sort o’ watchman’ I was telling you about.”