A mile or so farther on, the white-jacket reappeared and, gliding by all others to reach his captain, said, with mincing feet and a semicircular bow, while presenting a tray of six, not seven, sherry cobblers:
"Sev'l gen'lemen's comp'ments, an' ax, will Mis' Gil'——"
"What gentlemen? Who?"
"Sev'l gen'lemen, yassuh. Dey tell me dess say, sev'l gen'lemen. Sev'l gen'lemen ax will Mis' Gilmo' have de kin'ness fo' to sing some o' dem same songs she sing night afo' las' in de ladies' cabin an' las' night up hyuh.... Yass'm, whiles dey listens f'om de b'ileh deck."
"Has my father gone to bed?" asked Ramsey.
"No'm, he up yit. He done met up wid dese sev'l gen'lemen an' find dey old frien's—callin' deyse'v's in joke Gideon' Ban'—an' he talkin' steamboats wid 'em——"
The speaker tittered as Ramsey inquiringly extended her arms out forward and crossed her wrists. "Yass'm," he said, "hin' feet on de front rail, yass'm."
It seemed but fair that Mrs. Gilmore, to meet the compliment generously, should sing at the very front of the hurricane roof, just over the forward guards of the boiler deck. But Ramsey and Hugh kept their place. Ramsey wanted to be near the sky, she explained, when songs were sung on the water by moonlight, and eagerly spoke for two or three which her friend had sung of old on the Votaress to spiritualize the "acrobatics" of the Brothers Ambrosia.
The singer's voice was rich, trained, and mature, and her repertory a survival of young days—nights—before curtains and between acts: Burns, Moore, Byron, and Mrs. Norton, alternating with "The Lavender Girl," "Rose of Lucerne," "Dandy Jim o' Caroline," and "O Poor Lucy Neal." And now she sang her best, in the belief that while she sang the pair up between her and the pilot-house were speaking conclusively. Let us see.
"Ramsey," said Hugh, and waited—ten seconds—twenty.