Rob rejoined his companions, who had walked on some distance ahead. His gloomy look had vanished like snow in the spring.
“Isn’t it great, glittering, glorious?” cried Merritt as he came up.
“I simply can’t believe it yet,” cried Tubby. “I’m afraid I’ll wake up like I do some nights when I’m dreaming about a banquet at which I’m an honored guest.”
“——and I can always send postcards from the Isthmus,” breathed Rob, which remark did not seem very germane to the conversation. His companions looked at him in amazement for an instant and then, comprehending, broke into a roar of laughter, for which Rob chased them half way back to Hampton, catching Tubby at last and belaboring that stout youth till he roared for mercy.
But the fat boy had his revenge. As soon as he was released he sought a safe refuge and then, holding his staff like a guitar, he rolled his eyes upward in imitation of a troubadour, and howled at the top of his voice:—
“On a bee-yoot-i-ful night!
With a bee-yoot-i-ful gy-url!”
Rob didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.
CHAPTER XV.
OFF FOR THE ISTHMUS.
The S.S. Caribbean lay at her dock at the foot of West Twenty-fifth Street, New York City, with steam up in readiness for her departure for Colon, which, as every boy knows, is the easterly port of the Canal Zone and the terminus on that side of the Isthmus of the Panama Railroad. Everything appeared to be a perfect maze of confusion. Derricks rattled, steam winches roared and wagons clattered about the dock in every direction. From the ’scape pipe of the big steamer white wisps of steam were pouring, while black smoke rolled from the squat, black funnel. At the foremast flew the Blue Peter, that blue flag with a square white center that, all the world over, signifies “Sailing day.”