Captain Sam Curtis roared out a salutation in return. If there was a voice within a radius of twenty miles about Southport that could equal that of Captain Sam Curtis, no one had ever heard of it. It had a reputation all its own, far and wide.
“Why, hello, squire,” cried Captain Sam. He had failed to notice Harvey and Henry Burns for the moment in the crowd. “Good evening, squire, good evening. Guess you’re glad to get that ’ere boy of yours back again, ain’t yer?”
“Yes,” answered the squire, irritably.
“Well, I guess you better be!” exclaimed Captain Sam. “I thought he was a goner there, yesterday, when I saw the Seagull go kerflop.”
“What!” cried the squire. “You saw it? How is that? I thought you said there weren’t any other boats around, Harry.”
The squire turned to his son; but young Harry Brackett was vanishing out the store door.
“See it? I rather guess I did see it,” bawled Captain Sam, warming up to his subject, while the villagers sat up and paid attention. “Why, I had the spy-glass on that ’ere youngster for twenty minutes before he did the trick. He was a-sailing that ’ere boat like a codfish trying to play ‘Home, Sweet Home’ on the pianner.”
“Nonsense!” roared the now infuriated squire, who observed the audience in the store snickering and nudging one another. “Nonsense, I say. He can sail a boat just as good as you can. Why, he told me, only the other day, before I let him have the Seagull at all, how he won races last summer in a yacht off Marblehead.”
“‘NONSENSE,’ ROARED THE INFURIATED SQUIRE, ‘HE CAN SAIL A BOAT AS GOOD AS YOU CAN.’”