Brainard saw his thoughtless blunder and quickly added:
"I didn't mean that, old man. You know how much I wish I could help you get on your feet again. Forgive me, won't you? I haven't any real troubles. Only a frost-bitten pineapple patch that was going to make my fortune. But it will be bearing again in two years, and then I'll be on velvet. Those gay visitors made me a bit restless, that's all, just as you walk the beach for hours after a Morgan liner passes close in shore."
Bearded Fritz Wagenhals, the station-keeper, broke in with a sardonic chuckle:
"It is the same way when we haf canned sausage for dinner. I think myself back in Heidelberg already, where I haf taken my university degree twenty years ago. What is the matter mit you, Boy? Was it the homesickness?"
"No-o, not exactly," confessed Brainard with a slightly embarrassed smile, "but I seem to be the only one of the three of us who can lift the curtain and get a peep at what he used to be. It's my day off, and with your permission, Skipper Wagenhals, I'm going to break my vows and trail up to the gorgeous Coquina Beach Hotel for dinner. It sounds rash, doesn't it? No sign of bad weather, is there?"
The Keeper replied with a shade of doubt:
"The barometer is not so conservative as I would like to see him, and we are very due to catch a norther already. But I don't think the weather will break before next day or to-morrow. You haf been a good boy, and you will haf your fling."
Brainard hauled a steamer-trunk from beneath his cot and began to toss out apparel which had been hidden therein for two long years. He held up a dinner coat and caressed it, rubbed a pair of patent-leather ties with a bunch of cotton waste, and made obeisance to a crackling shirt-bosom. Memories crowded back, and the smash of his high hopes of fortune was forgotten. Ashley Brainard was among his own again, a famous stroke of the 'varsity eight, counting a host of young men and maidens among his friends and admirers.
His mad impulse sent a flutter of excitement through the station. The surfmen crowded around and were eager to help their butterfly emerge from his cocoon. Fritz Wagenhals said, as he picked up the shirt with reverent care:
"It is a privilege if you allow me the buttons to put in. I once wore him every night. My Gott, that was so long ago! Also it is good manners here to eat mit your knife, but not so at the Coquina Beach Hotel."