I sank into my seat. In a moment the mutiny had been crushed. Not even a cabin boy had fallen! Edgar returned with a spade, an axe, and a pick. He placed them in the seat beside the boy driver.
“What is your name, boy?” he asked.
“Rupert,” said the boy.
“Rupert,” continued Edgar, “drive us to the beach. When you get to the bathing pavilions keep on along the shore toward Manasquan Inlet.” He touched the spade with his hand. “I have bought a building lot on the beach,” he explained, “and am going to dig a hole, and plant a flagpole.”
I was choked with indignation. As a writer of fiction my self-respect was insulted.
“If there are any more lies to be told,” I whispered, “please let me tell them. Your invention is crude, ridiculous! Why,” I demanded, “should anybody want to plant a flagpole on a wind-swept beach in October? It’s not the season for flagpoles. Besides,” I jeered, “where is your flagpole? Is it concealed in the suit-case?”
Edgar frowned uneasily, and touched the boy on the shoulder.
“The flagpole itself,” he explained, “is coming down to-morrow by express.”
The boy yawned, and slapped the flanks of his horse with the reins. “Gat up!” he said.
We crossed the railroad tracks and moved toward the ocean down a broad, sandy road. The season had passed and the windows of the cottages and bungalows on either side of the road were barricaded with planks. On the verandas hammocks abandoned to the winds hung in tatters, on the back porches the doors of empty refrigerators swung open on one hinge, and on every side above the fields of gorgeous golden-rod rose signs reading “For Rent.” When we had progressed in silence for a mile, the sandy avenue lost itself in the deeper sand of the beach, and the horse of his own will came to a halt. On one side we were surrounded by locked and deserted bathing houses, on the other by empty pavilions shuttered and barred against the winter, but still inviting one to “Try our salt water taffy” or to “Keep cool with an ice-cream soda.” Rupert turned and looked inquiringly at Edgar. To the north the beach stretched in an unbroken line to Manasquan Inlet. To the south three miles away we could see floating on the horizon-like a mirage the hotels and summer cottages of Bay Head.