“Ten times,” replied McBain.
“Then, if you please,” said Ralph, “don’t send me. I’d rather be excused, Captain McBain, I do assure you.”
“And so our summer cruise is ended,” said Allan, with something very like a sigh.
“And haven’t we enjoyed it too!” said Rory, who was lying on the sofa locker, book in hand. “Troth, boys,” he added, “I didn’t notice, till this very minute, that my book was upside down. It is dreaming I was entirely. Oh! those, beautiful mountains of the Cuchullin, raising their diamond tops into the summer air, with the purple haze beneath them, and the blue sea flecked with white-winged birds! Scenery like this I’ll never get out of my head, and what is more I never wish to, and if ever it does attempt to slip away, sure I’ve only to shut my eyes and play that sweetest of old reveries, ‘Tha mi tinn leis a ghoal,’ (The Languor of Love), and it will all, all come back again.”
“And we’ve had the very best of eating and drinking all the time, you know,” Ralph said.
“And it hasn’t cost us much,” added Allan.
Rory looked first at one and then at the other of his friends, apparently more in sorrow than in anger; then he resumed his book, this time with the right side up.
“I’ve been keeping tally,” continued Allan, addressing himself more particularly to McBain, “of all that our voyage has cost us, and taking everything into consideration, I find that we couldn’t have travelled half so cheaply on shore, nor could we have lived as cheaply even at home. We did not pay much for the cutter and all her fittings, and if we had cared to do a little more fishing, and sent more boxes of lobsters down with the southern steamers, I think we would positively have made a good deal of profit.”
“You are thoroughly practical,” said Ralph; “I like you for that.”
“Well, but,” said Allan, half apologetically, “neither of us, you know, is extra rich, and I think it is some satisfaction to look back to a time spent most pleasantly and enjoyably, without either extra expenditure, or—or—what shall I say?”