“What a pretty picture,” laughed Mabel. “Glimpse Tim, draped in leopard’s skin, nimbly going up the shrouds, with a telescope, development of the modern time, to sit in the crosstree and watch the races in the sound.”
“People always imagine that whatever time they live in is the very worst time, and, as for clothes, what could be more uncomfortable than a leopard’s skin. It would always be getting in the soup or something,” objected Jack.
“You would hardly have to worry about soup in connection with a leopard’s skin. What you would probably do would be skip along the shore and hunt for mussels or hide behind the bushes and jump out on a frightened little pig and sit down on your haunches and devour him raw,” decided Frances.
“Consider the bristles,” shuddered Ellen.
“Dinghy abaft our stern, sirs,” announced Mr. Wing to the little group in the saloon.
The dinghy slipped up to the “Boojum” and Jane went down to join her friends in the saloon. Breck, after making fast the dinghy, went forward to the galley. It had been decided between them that it would be better not to say anything about their plans until after Frederick Gray made his appearance and the subject of Tim’s boat had been settled, then Jane had planned to talk to Mr. Wing about the feasibility of turning Hurricane Island into a summer resort. As to their proposed partnership, that could wait. In the meantime it was nobody’s business but theirs.
“How ’bout my little boat?” Tim demanded with such a motherly expression that they all laughed.
“Right as rain,” Jane assured him. “And, Oh! Tim, she is a darling, isn’t she? Breck and I snugged ship for you and we have got a boy coming over tonight to see you about taking her back to Nantucket for you. ‘Sabrina’ is a lovely name for her too.”
“What sort of boy, Plain Jane?” inquired Mr. Wing.
“A perfect peach of a boy. Breck and I went bats about him. In the first place, he is a dream to look at—”