“No, you are cruel,” replied Mason. “You are going up to the falls. I insist on that. Let’s take that as settled. The canoe is yours.” He caught an encouraging look from his wife. “If you want to torture me you will say you will not go. If you want to do me the greatest of favours, you will let my friend go in the canoe with you to the landing.”
“What! go alone with a stranger?” cried Miss Sommerton, freezingly.
“No, the Indians will be there, you know.”
“Oh, I didn’t expect to paddle the canoe myself.”
“I don’t know about that. You strike me as a girl who would paddle her own canoe pretty well.”
“Now, Edward,” said his wife. “He wants to take some photographs of the falls, and—”
“Photographs? Why, Ed., I thought you said he was an artist.”
“Isn’t a photographer an artist?”
“You know he isn’t.”
“Well, my dear, you know they put on their signs, ‘artist—photographer, pictures taken in cloudy weather.’ But he’s an amateur photographer; an amateur is not so bad as a professional, is he, Miss Sommerton?”