Kendall followed the other into the boathouse and helped him lift a battered green canvas canoe from the rack. When it was outside The Duke viewed it dubiously. “Looks sort of leaky, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Guess we’d better take a bailer along. Hi, Lin, got something I can bail out with?”
Lin Johnson picked up a tin can from the bottom of the canoe he was disembarking from and tossed it across. The Duke caught it deftly, dropped it in the bottom of the green canoe and pushed the latter into the water. In a minute they were afloat, Kendall facing The Duke from the bow and watching rather enviously the skill with which the latter managed a paddle from the blade of which a good two inches had been splintered. They went up the little river, meeting other craft and exchanging greetings. Once The Duke remarked laughingly:
“Funny how tickled everyone is to see me to-day. It pays to travel in good company.”
“How do you mean?” asked Kendall innocently.
“Why, don’t you see how cordial the fellows are? That’s because you’re here, O Mighty Warrior. If I were alone they’d just nod and say ‘’Lo, Duke!’ Now they nearly fall out of their canoes being polite!”
“Nonsense!” said Kendall, blushing a little. “Why, lots of those fellows we’ve passed hardly know me.”
“That’s only because you won’t let them. They’d all be tickled to death to be in my place. Why, my stock will go up a hundred per cent this afternoon!”
Kendall smiled doubtfully. “I guess they’d a good deal rather know you than me,” he murmured.
“Think so, my Modest Violet? You miss your guess, then. I wonder if you’re as innocent as you seem, Burtis.”
“Innocent?”