“Have you seen Fraine?” asked the commander. “They just let me look in on him after the operation.”
“No, I haven’t seen him, but it really doesn’t matter, because it will be days before he knows anyone. Poor old Fraine! I certainly hope the next time I am captain, there won’t have to be a war staged to get me the job.”
“I’m sorry about Fraine, and Florsheim, too,” said Mr. Hammond, “but it was an accident that might have occurred wherever Fraine had happened to be. And as far as you go, David, well, boy, I am well satisfied with you.” He patted David’s shoulder in a way that added value to his brief praise.
“Wonder where Dulcie and the professors are,” he continued. “I hope they haven’t gone off on some jaunt of their own. I clean forgot to tell them that we are going out in a powerboat to see the lagoons and the coast line. See if you can find them, will you?”
David ran the quarry to earth in the lounge. Doctor Sims had just heard of another very old graveyard some distance from the city, but the others succeeded in persuading him to postpone indefinitely his contemplated pilgrimage thereto, for the lesser pleasure of an afternoon on the water.
The launch was a gorgeous thing, with mahogany planking and silver fittings. It was a calm day, and the water was scarcely broken by a ripple. The launch shot through the water at furious speed, and the young naval officer, whose guest they were, asked Mr. Hammond if he cared to go faster.
“No, I don’t think so, thanks. I am rather timid, you see.”
A general laugh went up.
“How cruelly the commander must suffer, six thousand feet in the air,” laughed the host.
“That’s different,” said Mr. Hammond, laughing at himself. “There is something so upsetting about this.”