"Oh, I do," Rex interrupted, sweetly. "But don't lay it on too thick. I begin to feel slight symptoms of mal de mere. A little of the kind of gratitude you fellows feel goes a long way with me."
CHAPTER XIX.
MORE OF MR. QUIBB.
"Lower away!" shouted Rex, as he put the nose of the Spoondrift into the passage between the two charging files of breakers. In a moment, it seemed, the catboat drifted on the heaving but quiet bosom of the small cove.
Rex Kingdon dealt in melodrama; no doubt of that. He liked to do things to startle his comrades. But they were not always chance things done on the spur of the moment. More often he shrewdly molded circumstances to lead up to his most startling successes. He had had both his friends and "The Happy Family," as Red had named their guests, speculating during these last few minutes. It had looked as though the old Spoondrift could not possibly be brought into this haven in safety.
"By George!" Horace Pence unwillingly said. "You're some pilot, you are!"
"Me!" Rex returned lightly. "If I'd sailed with Columbus, we'd landed at New York, not at a little picayune island down in the West Indies."
"Well, we'll be getting our canoes over and going ashore, I guess," Horace said in rather an embarrassed tone for him.
"So long," returned Kingdon carelessly. "Come up and give me another look at that fast ball of yours to-morrow."
"Perhaps," said the black-eyed fellow, non-committally.