"Why not?" commented Drew, with a grin. "Catfish is good. So is catsup. Why not cat stew?"
"I think you men are just horrid!" exclaimed Ruth. "Taking away poor Wah Lee's character like this behind his back."
"Well, I guess we won't have to worry about his falling from grace on this cruise," laughed her father. "We're too well stocked up for him to be driven to try experiments."
When they went up on deck, the moon had risen. Its golden light tipped the waves with a sheen of glory and turned the spray into so much glittering diamond dust. Under its magic witchery, the ropes and rigging looked like lace work woven by fairy fingers.
The crew were grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing a concertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from time to time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slight musical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended with the regular slapping of the water against her sides as the Bertha Hamilton sailed steadily on her course.
The air was the least bit chilly, and this gave Drew an excuse for tucking Ruth cozily into the chair he had placed in a sheltered position behind the deckhouse. His fingers trembled as he drew the rugs and shawls around her. She snuggled down, wholly content to be waited on so devotedly, and perhaps—who knows?—sharing to some degree the emotion that made the man's pulse race so madly.
CHAPTER XV
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
Drew placed his own chair close beside Ruth's—as close as he dared. And they talked.