"There are some others here who will have occasion to be thankful for your arrival; for I don't think anything would have been saved if you had not taken the lead. But, Margie, we haven't even a carriage to convey us to a hotel."
"I think I can manage that for you, sir," I interposed. "We can take you and your trunks into our boat, and convey you to the other side of the town."
"Thanks; you are very kind. But we are not willing to take up any more of your time," protested the stranger. "Besides, I don't know where to go, unless we take the next train for Jacksonville; for yesterday, and when we arrived a week ago, the hotels and boarding-houses were all full to overflowing. I only got in where I was by the landlord and his daughter giving us their rooms, while they went to a cottage of a friend. Perhaps we had better leave the place at once, for I am sure we can't find lodgings. I looked the place all over for accommodations."
"But we are too late to leave the place to-night, papa," replied Miss Margie, and both she and her father seemed to be very anxious about the situation.
"We shall find some kind of accommodations at the hotels, though it be nothing better than the servants' rooms. They won't let us sleep in the streets," added the father, more cheerfully.
"I think I can take care of you for a few days," I interposed; "at any rate, until you find better quarters."
"Pardon me, sir; but you look like sailors; and you all went up the posts under the veranda as though you were sailors," added the gentleman.
"We are sailors, and we belong to a steam-yacht lying at anchor on the other side of the city," I replied. "We will take you and your daughter around to her, with your baggage; and then you can make such arrangements for the future as you desire."
"We thank you; you are very kind, and we accept your offer," said the gentleman. "The place is so crowded with visitors that it is very difficult to get anything done for you; and we might have to stay here a long time before we could get a carriage to convey us and our luggage to another place. Besides, this fire will turn forty or fifty people out of their house, and there will be an increased demand for rooms."
"I can take care of you for a few days, at any rate," I replied. "Put those trunks into the fore sheets of the boat, Ben."