"Oh!" she cried: "Do you see it? That little dark, impudent-looking one, and the flag?"
Peter saw; he was not quite, he reminded her, even in the intoxication of a morning on the lagoons with her, quite in that state where he couldn't see his country's flag when it was pointed out to him. They came alongside with long strokes, and sniffed deliciously.
"Ah—um—um——" said Miss Dassonville. "I know what that is. It's ham and eggs. How long since you've had a real American breakfast?"
"Not since I left the steamer," Peter confessed. "Now if I were to smell hot cakes I shouldn't be able to stand it. I should go aboard her."
Miss Dassonville saluted softly as they went under the bright banner.
"'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light,'" she began to sing and immediately a large, blooming face rose through a mist of faded whisker at the prow and they saw all the coast of Maine looking down on them from the rail of the Merrythought.
"United States, ahoy?" it said.
They came close under and Miss Dassonville hailed in return; as soon as the captain saw her face smiling up at him he beamed on it as the women in the boats had done.
"We smelled your breakfast," she explained, and the man laughed delightedly.
"I know what kind these Dagoes give ye. Come up and have some."