“It is what I wanted before. But we have only half an hour—less than that,” replied the great man, looking at his watch again.
“We can make time if we are fifteen minutes late. Do you accept, Wolf?”
“I do; with many thanks.”
“But the engineer?” said the colonel anxiously.
“Send over for my father with all possible haste. I will go down and look out for the engine until he comes,” I replied.
“I will go over myself in your boat, Wolf. In this breeze I can cross in five minutes,” added Waddie, seizing his hat and rushing out of the house.
“I will go with you to the steamer, Wolf,” said Colonel Wimpleton.
All this was so sudden that I had not time to realize the situation. As I walked down to the wharf with the magnate of Centreport, I recalled some mysterious words of Waddie, which seemed now to have a point. He had told me that I should not care to go up the lake the next week with the fishing-party. Certainly he could not have known that the event which had just occurred would open the way for me; but he was doubtless aware that the moment he said the word the captain of the Ucayga would be discharged. He knew that his father was dissatisfied with the management of the boat, and I suppose, as soon as he had determined to be my friend, he meant to give me the position.
“Wolf, I have intended this place for you ever since you used me so well in the yacht,” said the colonel, as we walked down the street. “Waddie would not consent. He hated you like a demon. But you have conquered him, and that is more than I could ever do.”
I wanted to tell him that good was all-powerful against evil; but the remark looked egotistical to me, and I suppressed it.