The launch was fifty feet from the pier when I heard a shout. Colton was standing on the wharf edge, waving his hand. Beside him stood his daughter, her mother's arms about her.
“Here! Paine!” shouted Colton. “Come back! Come back and go home with us in the car. There is plenty of room.”
I did not answer.
“Come back! Come back, Paine!” he shouted again. Mrs. Colton raised her head from her daughter's shoulder.
“James! James!” she cautioned, without taking the trouble to lower her voice, “don't make a scene. Let him go in his dreadful boat, if he prefers to.”
“Paine!” cried her husband again.
“I must look out for the launch,” I shouted. “I shall be home almost as soon as you are. Good-by.”
I left the lightkeeper at his island. He refused to accept a cent from me, except in payment for the gasolene, and declared he had had a “fust-rate night of it.”
“Come and see us again, Mr. Paine,” he said. “Come any time and fetch your lady along. She's a good one, she is, and nice-lookin', don't talk! You're a lucky critter, did you know it? Haw! haw! Good-by.”
The Comfort never made better time than on that homeward trip. I anchored her at her moorings, went ashore in the skiff, and hastened up to the house. It was past ten o'clock and I would be over an hour late at the bank. A fine beginning for my first day in charge of the institution!