The man started as if stung. “Jemima!” he breathed, incredulous. Then caution prompted him to extend a calloused and work-warped hand. “Cross my palm,” he said.
“You give it to him, Staff,” said Iff magnificently. “I’m short of cash.”
Obediently, Staff disbursed the required sum. The native thumbed it, pocketed it, lifted his coat from a nail behind the door and started across the road in a single movement.
“You come ’long, Spelvin,” he said in passing, “’nd help with the boat. If you gents’ll get out on the dock I’ll have her alongside in three minutes, ’r my name ain’t Bascom.”
Pursued by the chauffeur, he disappeared into the huddle of boat-houses and beached and careened boats. A moment later, Iff and Staff, picking their way through the tangle, heard the scrape of a flat-bottomed boat on the beach and, subsequently, splashing oars.
By the time they had reached the end of the dock, the boatbuilder and his companion were scrambling aboard a twenty-five-foot boat at anchor in the midst of a small fleet of sail and gasoline craft. The rumble of a motor followed almost instantly, was silenced momentarily while the skiff was being made fast to the mooring, broke out again as the larger boat selected a serpentine path through the circumjacent vessels and slipped up to the dock.
Before it had lost way, Iff and Staff were aboard. Instantly, Bascom snapped the switch shut and the motor started again on the spark.
“Straight out,” he instructed Spelvin at the wheel, “till you round that white moorin’-dolphin. Then I’ll take her.” ...
Not long afterward he gave up pottering round the engine and went forward, relieving Spelvin. “You go back and keep your eye on that engyne,” he ordered; “she’s workin’ like a sewin’-machine, but she wants watchin’. I’ll tell you when to give her the spark. Meanwhile you might ’s well dig them lights out of the port locker and set ’em out.”
“No,” Iff put in. “We want no lights.”