“Goodness gracious, Mildred, you don’t mean to say that you’ve been buying a yacht and told me nothing about it? Just think! Well, I call that sly.”
“Yes, my dear Agatha, I have; a yacht and a ready-made crew, and the very prettiest saloon in the world, and sleeping-cabins that you will think it an honour to be sea-sick in, and a cook’s galley with bright copper fittings, and a cook with a white cap, and steam-steering gear if you care to use it, and——”
“For goodness sake, don’t overwhelm us; and what are you going to do with your white elephant, now that you have got it?”
“Do with it? why, ride on it, of course. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ or rather ‘lady and gentleman.’ Attention! You will both be in marching, or rather in sailing, order by four this afternoon, for at five we start for the Canaries. Now, no remarks; I’m a skipper, and I expect to be obeyed, or I’ll put you in irons.”
“You’ve done that already,” said Arthur, sotto voce.
“Mildred, I won’t go, and that’s flat.”
“My dear, you mean that you are afraid of being flat. But, Agatha, seriously, you must come; nobody is sick in those semi-tropical waters, and, if you won’t, I suppose it would not be quite the thing for Arthur and I to go alone. And then, my dear, just think what a splendid place the Canaries must be for insects.”
“Why?” asked Agatha, solemnly.
“Because of all the little birds it has to support.”
“But I thought they lived on hemp-seed.”