The daughter halted, aghast. "Has he got it?" But her mother went on without reply. She turned to the players and, when they smiled invitingly, rejoined them. When she inquired their name they said it was Gilmore.
"Will you tell me about the Quakeress?" she asked.
The husband said he would. "But you don't mean now," he qualified, "when so many things are happening?"
"N-no," she replied grudgingly, and presently added: "I'm afraid my brother's got the cholera." But then she brightened triumphantly. "Anyhow," she said, "the mate didn't know that." The engine bells jingled, the wheels paused, and the shore appeared to drift down upon them, pushing the crowded wharf-boat before it. "What d'you reckon this beautiful boat is saying to herself right now?" she asked.
"She ought to say," critically put in the bishop, behind her, to the senator, while she turned and cast her head-to-foot scrutiny up and down the two, "that for the welfare of that wharf-boatful of men and boys, and of the homes they live in, she'd best not land, after all."
"That's what she is saying!" defensively cried Ramsey, and, sure enough, while she laughed the scape-pipes roared and the wheels backed till the wharf-boat stood still. At the same time the pilots changed watch. The captain sauntered to the forward rail. The commodore, with the mate and Hugh, went below. So closely did the actor's eyes follow them that Ramsey asked: "What are they going to do?"
"Going ashore in the yawl, I hope, for a doctor."
"And medicines," added some one.
"And for a priest," disparagingly said the smiling bishop as they moved to the shoreward edge of the roof. "Large demands our deck passengers are making."
"An outrage!" said the senator. "It's an outrage that they, who wouldn't have dared whimper a month ago in their own country, should be allowed to behave this way here!"