Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and Charles glarin’ murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for supper.
“Come over again this evenin’,” says I. “You’re makin’ a hit.”
Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He’s a great one to keep his word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he’s bent on deliverin’ while the mood is on.
Gettin’ no answer from his audience didn’t bother him a bit; for passin’ out the monologue is his strong suit. Not to seem partial, he trails down Charlie and Helen and converses with them too. Course, all this occurrin’ outside, I couldn’t watch everything that took place; but I sits in the lib’ry with Sadie a lot more contented than I’d been before that week.
And when Marjorie drifts in alone, along about nine o’clock, and goes to drummin’ on the piano, I smiles. Ten minutes later Helen appears too; and it’s only when neither of the boys show up that I begins wonderin’. I asks no questions; but goes out on a scoutin’ trip. There’s nobody on the veranda at all. Down by the waterfront, though, I could hear voices, and I goes sleuthin’ in that direction.
“Yes,” I could hear Harold sayin’ as I got most to the boat landin’, “the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really a minute marine animal which——”
I expect I’ll never know the rest; for just then there’s a break in the lecture.
“One, two, three—now!” comes from Bobbie, and before Harold can let out a single squeal they’ve grabbed him firm and secure, one by the heels and the other by the collar, and they’ve begun sousin’ him up and down off the edge of the float. It was high tide too.
“Uggle-guggle! Wow!” remarks Harold between splashes.
“That’s right,” observes Charles through, his teeth. “Swallow a lot of it, you windbag! It’ll do you good.”