“Yes, me and him is going out in the ‘Digby Chicken.’ A tidy craft but we’ll manage her all right, all right.”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried Monty, patting the child’s shoulder and incidentally slipping a quarter into the little fellow’s open palm; for it was a habit of the richer lad to bestow frequent tips whenever he journeyed anywhere, enjoying the popularity this gave him with his “inferiors.”
“A sail-boat? Can you manage a sail-boat, Melvin Cook, by yourself without a man to help you?” he demanded in sincere astonishment.
“Feel that!” answered Melvin, placing Monty’s hand upon his “muscle.” “There’s a bit of strength in that arm, eh, what? And you may not know that I come of a race of sailors and have almost lived upon the water all my life. Manage a sail-boat? Huh! If you choose to come along I’ll show you.”
Ten minutes later they were moving out in a their frail craft from the little pier across the street from the hotel; Melvin for skipper, Tommy for mate, and Montmorency for a passenger. That was the beginning. It did not dawn upon any of the trio what the ending of that sail would be.
CHAPTER X
WHAT BEFELL A “DIGBY CHICKEN”
The second bell for the last meal of the day had again rung, and again the Breckenridge party waited on the verandah for delinquents. Mrs. Stark positively declined to enter the dining-room until she had found out what had become of Montmorency. Mrs. Hungerford as positively declined to leave Mrs. Stark, and the Judge’s temper was again being sorely tried. Their twenty-mile drive and sight-seeing had sharpened appetites that already were quite sharp enough and the eminent jurist wanted his supper. To walk off his impatience, if he could, he paced up and down the long verandah at a brisk rate, which did not tend to allay that uncomfortable feeling in his “inner man.”