"What would you do, Stirrups? Why, you'd[23] go back to town and try to pick another winner. Wouldn't you?"
He laughed.
"Naturally that is what you would do, isn't it?" She considered him curiously for a moment, then smiled. "How funny!" she said, almost breathlessly.
"Rather," he murmured, and flicked his cigarette overboard.
The Orange Puppy had disappeared beyond the thicket of palmettos across the point. The air was very warm and still.
Her father waddled forward presently, wearing the impressive summer regalia of a commodore in the Siwanois Yacht Club. His daughter's blue eyes rested on the portly waistline of her parent—then on his fluffy chop-whiskers. A vacant, hunted look came into her eyes.
"Father," she said almost listlessly, "I'm going to run away again."
"When do you start?" inquired that facetious man.
"Now, I think. What is there over there?"—turning her face again toward the distant lagoon, with its endless forests of water-oak, cedar, and palmetto.
"Over there," said her father, "reside several[24] species of snakes and alligators. Also other reptiles, a number of birds, and animals, and much microbic mud."