“What d’ye mean, George?” asked Josh; for the two boats were so close together all this while that those aboard could exchange comments without great difficulty; although they had to raise their voices considerably, because of the furious rattling of the exhausts.
“It must be a joke, be the powers;” broke in Andy, “because he’s been laughin’ that quiet loike till himsilf this long toime.”
“That’s what it is, a joke!” declared George; “and by that, I mean the wonderful Saunterer. Our new friend, Algernon, didn’t you hear him call his expensive craft a speed boat? Say, it’s a wonder, that’s what! The only thing I’m surprised at is his giving her such a gentle name. He ought to have called her Chain-Lightning, Blue Streak, or something like that. Why? Because she goes like a shot—nit. A speed boat, that thing? Well, and her doing about twelve miles an hour at her best too! I could cut circles all around her, if only you’d let me go, Jack. And look at the Tramp walking up on her; yet when did you call your craft a speed boat, I’d like to know?”
“Oh! that’s what’s so funny to you, is it?” Jack went on to say. “But you must remember who owns the Saunterer, George. Perhaps, when she’s doing her best she seems to be flying through the water like mad to Algernon. Everybody doesn’t happen to be built the same as you, George.”
“Well, I should say not,” declared the other, immediately.
“And there are a whole lot of people who are mighty glad of it,” put in Josh.
“Arrah! that’s thrue, ivery word av it,” echoed Andy. “Sure the world’d be turned upside-down in a hurry, av there were many Georges runnin’ around loose, thryin’ to bate ivery other George. I do be sayin’ ’em wid their tongues hangin’ out av their mouths and, always lookin’ for a race. Now, belave me the ould Comfort is a hape more to me likin’ than a boat that cuts through the wather loike a knife; and kapes ye thinkin’ ye are sittin’ on the sharp edge all the while.”
“Oh! well, there have to be different kinds of people in this old world,” sang out the undaunted George, “and we happen to be built on different models, that’s all. You never saw a race horse, one of the thoroughbred type, but what he was nervous, and finely strung. I suppose that’s the way I am constructed. Can’t help it, to save me. I’m really unhappy to be going slow at any time.”
And that was really a fact, for George ate his meals in a hurry, studied his lessons with a rush; and when he played football was always a terror upon the lines, carrying things with him; though apt to prove a weak defense in the end from over-exertion.
While this little heart-to-heart talk was going on, they kept drawing steadily closer to the white boat.