“Look here, Aleck, if you don’t be quiet with your chaff I’ll ink your nose.”
“Wonderful, isn’t he?” continued Macey. “I say, how many hundred miles an hour a boat like that will go!”
“Oh, I say, do drop it,” cried Vane, good-humouredly.
“I know,” cried Macey; “this is what you were thinking about that day we had Rounds’ boat.”
“Well, yes,” said Vane, quietly. “I couldn’t help thinking how slow and laborious rowing seemed to be, and how little change has been made in all these years that are passed. You see,” he continued, warming to his subject, “there is so much waste of manual labour. It took two of us to move that boat and not very fast either.”
“And only one sitting quite still to upset it,” said Gilmore quietly.
Macey started, as if he had been stung.
“There’s a coward,” he cried. “I thought you weren’t going to say any more about it.”
“Slipped out all at once, Aleck,” said Gilmore.
“But you were quite right,” said Vane. “Two fellows toiling hard, and just one idea from another’s brain proved far stronger.”