Regie would have preferred to adhere to the original plan of having Mr. Burton for a guide, but was sufficiently polite not to betray his preference.
“You won't begin the drill before I come out, will you?” he called out to Mr. Burton.
“Never you fear,” was the reassuring answer.
Nan showed Regie through, and was able to answer all questions to the perfect satisfaction of his little Royal Highness. First they went into the large room where the surf-boat was kept, and the life-saving car, which was oval in shape, with a cover fitting tightly over it. It was large enough to hold five people, and was sent out on the line to a wreck when the weather was too rough for the breeches-buoy. The breeches-buoy was a funny contrivance, made to accommodate one person at a time, and closely resembling a life-preserver in tarpaulin knee-breeches. Attached to it was an arrangement of pulleys and wheels, by means of which it could be run to and fro on a line from the wreck. At the farther end of the room hung the shells which had been fired from the mortar at different times. They were painted red, and each bore in white letters the name of the particular wreck to which it had proved such a welcome messenger.
From this larger room opened the “mess room,” a kitchen, where the crew spent most of their time during the long winter months. A steep little stairway ran up from one corner to the loft overhead where the men slept. At one end of it a large window looked out to sea, and from the centre of the room a short flight of ladder-like stairs led into the cupola which surmounted the Station, and from which you see a great distance in every direction. The view from the cupola this clear October morning was glorious.
The water was wonderfully blue, with here and there a white sail skimming over it, as lightly and airily as the fleecy clouds across the blue of the sky. Regie and Nan stood side by side, taking in the beauty of the scene. Presently Nan said, “Yes, I do love the ocean so, it seems to me I couldn't live away from it; as though I should die if I had to, the same as little plants and things die without water.”
“Yes, I guess you would,” answered Regie; “and do you know, Nan, I believe you must have been born on just such a day as this, for your eyes have the same shade of blue in them as the sea. Besides, you are like a little wave anyway, a daring little wave that comes scampering way up the beach and then—and then——,” Rex paused. He was sure he had hold of a very fine idea, but somehow he could not get on. A half-suppressed giggle from the stairway did not help matters much, nor a whispered, “Guess you're stuck, old fellow.” Harry always had a faculty for turning up when he was not wanted, and never when he was. Nan was thoroughly provoked at him. She liked what Rex was saying about her being just a little wave of the sea, and now she should never know how he was going to finish. But for Rex Harry's coming was quite fortunate, for he was himself quite at a loss to know how he should wind up the flowery little speech begun so bravely.
“You two spoonies had better come down,” Harry added, descending the little flight of stairs as noiselessly as he had come. Just then one of the men waved his hand as a sign that the drill was about to commence, and the children hurried down to join Harry, where he sat comfortably established on the hull of the old boat. The drill amounted to little more than a series of experiments with the breeches-buoy. The whip-line was shot over the improvised mast, and one after another all the crew got into the buoy and came spinning down the line.