“As you did not tell me what your move was to be, I think I will keep still for the present, especially as it is not yet matured.”
“That’s all gas, Wolf,” interposed Tommy. “You can’t do nothing.”
“Perhaps we can’t; but we can try,” I replied, good-naturedly.
The ferry-boat rang her bell, and my guests departed, though I offered them a passage in the Ucayga.
CHAPTER XX.
GRACE TOPPLETON FAINTS.
It was certainly our next move, and after the Ucayga left the wharf, I went into my stateroom, abaft the wheel-house, to make some figures relating to my plan. My apartment was a little parlor, and though I had scarcely been into it before, I was very much pleased with it. Besides a berth, in which a nice bed was made up, the stateroom was provided with a desk, lockers for books and papers, a couple of armchairs, a table, and other suitable furniture.
This was not the traditional “captain’s office” to which passengers are invited to step up by the boy with the bell. The office was abaft the port paddle-box on the main deck; and the Ucayga, in anticipation of doing a large business, was provided with a clerk, so that I had nothing to do but attend to the navigation of the boat.
I felt like a lord in my palatial little room, and I was rather sorry that the exigencies of the service did not require me to sleep in it. I sat down at my desk, and was soon absorbed in my calculation. In my own opinion, I had a splendid idea—one which would induce Major Toppleton and his son to call me a traitor again as soon as it was reduced to practise. I had not time to finish writing out the program before the mate called me, as the Ucayga approached the Horse-Shoe Channel.
I took the boat through the difficult passage, and after we had made the landing at Ruoara, I returned to my room, and finished writing out my plan. Then, with the aid of a handbill which hung up in the apartment, I drew up an advertisement of the proposed new arrangement suitable for the newspapers and for posters, so that, the moment it was approved by Colonel Wimpleton, it could be printed.
I was much excited by the brilliant scheme I had devised, and I was not quite sure that I could not throw the Lake Shore Railroad into the shade, even with one steamer. Certainly with two, the road would be reduced to the condition to which the major had condemned the Ucayga—that of doing merely a local business for the towns on its own line. I was very sorry that Colonel Wimpleton did not return by the morning boat, for I was impatient to show him my figures, and to have the new program inaugurated without any delay.