Dougal grinned happily. "That's just what we want. I haven't had a good scrap for months. Maxim can handle three or four of them alone, while Benton, Starr and I raise a rough house. We're going to go early and get front seats."
It was Fancy's turn to laugh. "You can't do it, Dougal. You don't know the first rules of the game. They always have their own crowd on the first two rows, and they won't let you get near the spirits. They only want believers, anyway. If you aren't careful, they won't let you in at all; they'll say all the seats are taken. You'd better go separately and sit in different parts of the room, and spot the bouncers if you can."
"Oh, we'll handle them all right. Where's a good one?"
Fancy reflected a minute. "I think, perhaps, Flora Flint is the best. She's a clever actress, and she always has a crowd. It's fifty cents. Her place is on Van Ness Avenue—I think her séances are on Wednesday evenings—you'll find the notice in the papers. But they're pretty smooth; they've had people try to break up the show before. If you try to turn on the light or grab any ghost, look out you don't get beaten up."
"Oh, you can trust us; we've got a new game," he answered.
Then, as the Sausalito boat was about to leave, they bade Fancy a hurried farewell and ran for the entrance to the slip. A few minutes after this Blanchard Cayley appeared, put his arm through hers, and they went on board the ferry.
The harbor of Tiburon, in the northern part of San Francisco Bay, is sheltered on the west by the promontory of Belvedere, where pretty cottages climb the wooded slopes, and on the south by Angel Island, with its army barracks, hospital and prison. Here was huddled a little fleet of house-boats or "arks," the farthest outshore of which belonged to Sully Maxwell.
It was a queer collection of architectural amphibia, these nautical houses floating in the bay. They were of all sizes, some seemingly too small to stretch one's legs in without kicking down a wall, others more ambitious in size, with double decks and roof-gardens. There were all grades and quality as well; some even had electric lights and telephone wires laid to the shore. Here, free from rent, taxes or insurance, the little summer colony dwelt, and the rowboats of butcher, baker and grocer plied from one to another. It was late in the season now, however, and only a few were occupied. A little later, when the rains had set in, they would all be towed into their winter quarters to hibernate till spring.
Cayley conducted Fancy Gray down to the end of a wharf where the skiff was moored, in the care of a boatman, and after loading the provisions and supplies he had purchased at the little French restaurant by the station, he rowed her out to the Edyth.
The bay was cloudless and without fog. The September sun poured over the water and sparkled from every tiny wave-top, the breeze was a gentle, easterly zephyr. Cayley seemed younger in the open air, and all that was best in him came to the surface. He was almost enthusiastic. Fancy was in high feather. As she sat in the stern of the skiff and trailed her hand in the salt water, he watched her with almost as much pride as had Gay P. Summer.