Abe turned to discover coming blithely down street—the one street running through McGregor—a gay lad of about fourteen years of age, dressed in an immaculate white sailor-suit. The approaching youth was walking, skipping, and jumping in such wise that it was hard to define what he was doing at any particular moment. He was rather small for his years, but apparently of muscle all compact. Gracefulness characterized his wildest and most impetuous motions. He was a perfect blonde, and his hair, bobbed after the fashion of little girls of ten or eleven, gave him a somewhat feminine aspect, further emphasized by his cream-and-rose complexion. A close observer, studying his pretty features, might indeed have inferred from his tip-tilted nose and his square chin that the youngster was not safely to be treated as a mollycoddle. Abe was not a close observer.
“I say,” he broke out, as the pretty boy drew near, “what sort of a lingo is that you’re giving us? You don’t call that American, do you?”
“Good morning, fair sir,” replied the boy, raising his sailor hat and bowing elaborately, “may I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?”
“What lingo was that you was a-singing?”
“The language, fair sir, of adventure.”
Abe frowned, and spat into the river.
“Permit me,” continued the newcomer, “to introduce myself. I have the honor of informing you that my name is Clarence Esmond. What is yours?”
“I’m Abe Thompson. What are you looking for this morning?” continued Abe, as he noticed that Clarence was gazing longingly at the craft moored at the river’s edge.
“Who?—me?” queried the debonair youth. He drew himself erect, threw back his head, raised his eyes, and with a dramatic gesture continued: “I am looking for the bright-eyed goddess of adventure!”
“Oh, talk American!”