“Why, Kiddo?”
“We must eat, you know.”
“But why dress? I like that style on you. It's too much trouble to dress.”
“All right!” she cried gayly. “We'll have a little informal dinner this evening. I love to feel the sand under my feet.”
He gathered the wood from the dry drifts above the waterline and kindled a fire. The salt-soaked sticks burned fiercely, and the dinner was cooked in a jiffy—a fresh chicken he had bought, sweet potatoes, and delicious buttered toast.
They sat in their bathing suits on camp-stools beside the folding table and ate by moonlight.
The dinner finished, Mary cleared the wooden dishes while Jim brought heaps of the dry, spongy sea grass and made a bed in the tent. He piled it two feet high, packed it down to a foot, and then spread the sheets and blankets.
“All ready for a stroll down the avenue, Kiddo?” he called from the door.
“Fifth Avenue or Broadway?” she laughed.
“Oh, the Great White Way—you couldn't miss it! Just look at the shimmer of the moon on the sands! Ain't it great?”