“Well, what of it?” asked Harvey.
“Nothing,” replied Henry Burns. “I’m just as glad as you are that he proposed it. I’ve enjoyed his company and his generosity. I only say he is a man that I’d rather have for a friend than an enemy.”
Jack Harvey laughed.
“Well, you may be right,” he said. “I never think of looking at anybody as deep as that. If a man comes along and wants a sail and wants some fun, and is willing to do his share, why, that’s enough for me. And if he’s up to any tricks, why, he and I’ll fight and have it over with. I don’t worry about what might happen.”
“Did you ever see me worry about anything?” asked Henry Burns.
“Why, no,” said Harvey, emphatically, “I never did. I meant that I don’t think about things just as you do.”
Which was certainly true.
If Mr. Carleton had any notion in his head that he had, as Harvey had suggested, hired a larger room for him and Henry Burns than was really needed—or if he had any notion in his head that he had wasted his money in hiring any rooms at all at the hotel—he showed no sign of it when he appeared in the office and they went into the dining-room. Indeed, he thought it a good joke on Henry Burns that he should have had to go off to the yacht for the night, and he laughed very heartily over it, behind his big moustache.
The wind was blowing fresh from the south as the party went out on the hotel piazza. It had started up early in the morning, along with the beginning of the flood-tide, which meant, in all likelihood, that it would blow fresher from now on until sundown. There were already whitecaps to be seen over all the bay, and the yachts that were out under sail were lying over to it and throwing the spray smartly. It was a good morning to show the fine sailing qualities of a boat, and they were eager to be off.
They went down through the town, then, to where the dory was tied.