“It's all right for you and me, dear,—but how about the future President of the United States sleeping up there in his crib?”
She smiled up into his eyes. “It's a nuisance, isn't it?—having to stop and consider that we are parents as well as lovers.”
They rejoined the group on the porch.
“I had a horrible dream last night,” said Peter Snipe, getting up and stretching himself. “That's why I'm staying up so late tonight. I hate to go to bed.”
“What was your dream, Peter?” asked Ruth.
“Do you believe in 'em?”
“Only in day-dreams.”
“Well, I dreamed our little old ship was finished and had sailed at last and for once our wireless plant up there began to get messages from the sea. I dreamed I was sitting up there with the operator. It was a dark, stormy night. The wireless began to crackle. He jumped up to see what was coming. He was getting messages from our own ship, away out there on the ocean. She was calling for help. 'Sinking fast,—sinking fast,—sinking fast.' Over and over again,—just those two words. 'Gad,—it was so real, so terribly real, that the first thing I did this morning was to walk down to see if the boat was still on the stocks. She was there, a long way from being finished, and—and, by gad, I had hard work to keep from blubbering, I was so relieved.”
“It will take more than a dream to knock that ship to pieces,” said Percival. “When she's ready for the water, there will not be a sturdier craft afloat. Andrew Mott says she'll weather anything outside of the China Sea. Don't look so distressed, Amy. Pete's a novelist. They never do anything but dream horrible dreams. Generally they go so far as to put them into print, and people read 'em and say they are wildly improbable,—especially if they have a happy ending. It's always the happy ending that makes them improbable,—but popular. Isn't that so, Pete?”
“If we didn't give them a happy ending, they would refuse to recognize us the next time they saw us on a bookseller's counter,” said Peter. “Well, I guess I'll be on my way. I've got a busy day tomorrow, setting up the Trigger Island Pioneer,—and as I belong to that almost extinct species known as the bachelor, I am forced to be my own alarm clock. Going my way, Abel?”