“On behalf of this queen among women,” turning to Mrs. Leroy, “our lovely hostess, as well as these fair young buds”—a graceful wave of his hand—(some of these buds had grandchildren) “who adorn her table, I rise to thank you, suh,”—semi-military salute to General Barton,—“for the opportunity you have given them of doing honor to a gentleman and a soldier,”—a double-barreled compliment that brought a smile to that gentleman’s face, and a suppressed ripple of laughter from the other members of the committee.
In the same generous way he filled his own and everybody else’s bumper for Sanford out of the bowl that Sam had rendered innocuous, addressing his friend as that “young giant, who has lighted up the pathway of the vasty deep.” To which bit of grandiloquence Sanford replied that the major was premature, but that he hoped to accomplish it the following year.
In addition to conducting all these functions, the Pocomokian neglected no minor detail of the feast. He insisted upon making the coffee after an especial formula of his own, and cooled in a new way and with his own hands the several cordials banked up on Sam’s silver tray. He opened parasols for the ladies and champagne for the men with equal grace and dexterity; was host, waiter, valet, and host again; and throughout the livelong day one unfailing source of enthusiasm, courtesy, and helpfulness. With all this be it said to his credit, he had never overstepped the limits of his position, as High Rubber-in-Chief,—his main purpose having been to get all the fun possible out of the situation, both for himself and for those about him. These praiseworthy efforts were not appreciated by all of the guests. The general and the committee had several times, in their own minds, put him down for a charlatan and a mountebank, especially when they deliberated upon the fit of his clothes, and his bombastic and sometimes fulsome speeches.
All these several vagaries, however, of the distinguished Pocomokian only endeared him the more to Sanford and his many friends. They saw a little deeper under the veneer, and knew that if the major did smoke his hostess’s cigars and drink her cognac, it was always as her guest and in her presence. They knew, too, that, poor and often thirsty as he was, he would as soon have thought of stuffing his carpet-bag with the sheets that covered his temporary bed as of filling his private flask with the contents of the decanter that Buckles brought nightly to his room. It was just this delicate sense of honor that saved him from pure vagabondage.
When coffee and cigars had been served, the general and his party again crossed the gangplank to the tender, the mooring-lines were thrown off, and the two boats, with many wavings of hands from yacht and Ledge, kept on their respective courses. The tender was to keep on to Keyport, where the committee were to board the train for New York, and the yacht was to idle along until sundown, and so on into Medford harbor. Captain Joe and Caleb were to follow later in the tug that had towed out the Screamer, they being needed in Keyport to load some supplies.
As the tender steamed away the men on the Ledge looked eagerly for Carleton, that they might give him some little leave-taking of their own,—it would have been a characteristic one,—but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Buried up in the coal bunkers, jes’ ’s I said,” laughed Lonny Bowles.
With the final wave to the fast disappearing tender of a red handkerchief, the property of the major, returned by the general standing in the stern of his own boat, Mrs. Leroy’s party settled themselves on the forward deck of the yacht to enjoy the afternoon run back to Medford.
The ladies sat under the awnings, where they were made comfortable with cushions from the saloon below, while some of the men threw themselves flat on the deck cushions, or sat Turkish fashion in those several sprawling positions only possible under like conditions, and most difficult for some men to learn to assume properly. Jack Hardy knew to a nicety how to stow his legs away, and so did Sanford. Theirs were always invisible. Smearly never tried the difficult art. He thought it beneath his dignity; and then again there was too much of him in the wrong place. The major wanted to try it, and no doubt would have done so with decorum and grace but for his clothes. It was a straight and narrow way that the major had been walking all day, and he could run no risks.