This fellow hadn’t quitted the boat, but busied himself lumbering, I thought, about the engine, which was situated in the after cockpit. A loosely knit chap he was, whose fingers were all thumbs.
And I, who fairly caress a bit of machinery, wondered how in thunder such a clumsy cuss could ever have got the position as engineer of so trim a little vessel.
But the little skipper again caught my attention, for he suddenly snapped his watch case and quickened to attention. His gaze never left the road that led to the wharf, which, by the way, was the way to the railroad station.
An auto, quick-driven and skidding slightly in the dust, rounded the turn by the shore hotel and took to the wharf’s planks.
Now, how it was that my eyes whirled from this decidedly new interest back to the heavy man in the boat I don’t know; but I am certainly glad now that I did glance that way on that particular second.
For, with a furtive look at his little chief, the fellow made a quick step forward and to starboard. It was but a second that his hand groped under a locker; but, when he withdrew it, his face lighted to a grin. He checked it quickly, though, as he slid back to his old position before the flywheel.
The car groaned to sharply applied brakes directly alongside the gangway that led steeply down to the float, for the tide was low.
Immediately a man popped from the limousine, and handed down a closely veiled woman; then he slipped a coin to the chauffeur, who forthwith made off.
Somehow or other, I was getting mighty interested by this time; though, of course, none of it was any of my business.
The woman wore a dream of a little, high-heeled boot, which showed prettily enough in her terror of the sharply sloping plank. But the man steadied her firmly to the float, where he nodded curtly to the little, gilded captain.