Occasionally the launch circled around us and got within hailing distance and we would exchange pleasantries, but Mabel never deigned to notice us. She was sitting by Sleepy and seemed to have mastered the art of running a naphtha launch. Tweedles told me afterwards that she made a dead set at the young giant but that he seemed to be perfectly unconscious of what she was after, and as soon as she had learned the extremely simple engine, after warning her to keep well away from the cat boat, he curled himself up on a pile of sweaters and went fast asleep. They say it was too funny for anything when Mabel realized the desertion of her teacher. She addressed a honeyed remark to him and received no answer but a smothered snort; she turned, and there he was lying prone on the deck, an expression on his rosy countenance like a cherub's, while he emitted an occasional soft, purring snore.
"There was a young lady named Fitch,
Who heard a loud snore, at which
She raised up her hat
And found that her rat
Had fallen asleep at the switch,"
sang Wink. "Hard luck, Mabel, but that is the way Sleepy always does. You must not take it personally. He even falls asleep when Miss Page Allison is entertaining him. The more amused he is, the quicker he is overcome with sleep. Miss Annie Pore is the only person who can keep him awake for any length of time, and that is because she is so quiet it is up to him to talk; and while he may be talking in his sleep, it doesn't sound like it."
"Awful pity we didn't insist on her coming in the launch if for no other reason than to keep him awake," said Jim. "She is a wonderfully charming girl and so pretty, don't you think so, Miss Binks?"
"Pretty and charming! You can't mean Orphan Annie! Why, she is the laughing stock of Gresham,—namby, pamby cry-baby!"
"Mabel Binks, you must have forgotten that Annie is our guest and one of our very best friends," stormed Dum.
"And no one ever laughed at her except persons with neither heart nor breeding. I will not say who they were as I respect Wink too much to be insulting to his guest," said Dee, tears of rage coming into her eyes.
"Oh, don't mind me!" exclaimed Wink uneasily, fearing a free fight was imminent.
All this time the two boats were coming nearer and nearer together. We were on the starboard tack and several times before during the morning we had come quite close to the launch and then the faster boat had swerved out of our way and we had gone off on a new tack, after calling out some form of repartee to our friends.
I never did believe Mabel meant to do it, but Tweedles to this day declares it was with malice of forethought that she deliberately held the launch in its course, and it was only by the most lightning of changes that Zebedee avoided a collision. The sail swung around without the ceremony of warning us to duck, and as we realized the danger we were in of being struck by the faster boat we instinctively crowded to the other side of our little vessel; and what with the sudden swerving of the heavy sail and the shifting of its human cargo and the added swell of waves made by the launch, we turned over as neatly as Mammy Susan could toss a flap jack.