Well, I got to take it all back—most of it, anyway. For, between you and me, this bein' a seagoing private sec. ain't the worst that can happen. Not so far as I've seen.
What I'm most chesty over, though, is the fact that I've been through the wop and wiggle test without feedin' the fishes. You see, when the good yacht Agnes leaves Battery Park behind, slides down past Staten Island and the Hook, and out into the Ambrose Channel, I'm feelin' sort of low. I'd been lookin' our course up on the map, and, believe me, from where New York leaves off to where the tip end of Florida juts out into the Gulf Stream is some wide and watery jump. No places to get off at in between, so far as I can dope out. It's just a case of buttin' right out into the Atlantic and keepin' on and on.
We hadn't got past Scotland Lightship before the Agnes begins that monotonous heave-and-drop stunt. Course, it ain't any motion worth mentionin', but somehow it sort of surprises you to find that it keeps up so constant. It's up and down, up and down, steady as the tick of a clock; and every time you glance over the rail or through a porthole you see it's quite a ride you take. I didn't mind goin' up a bit; it's that blamed feelin' of bein' let down that's annoyin'.
For a while there I was more or less busy helping Old Hickory get his floating office straightened out and taking down a few code messages for the wireless man to send back to the general offices while we was still within easy strikin' distance. It was when I planted myself in a wicker chair 'way back by the stern, and begun watchin' that slow, regular lift and dip of the deck, that I felt this lump come in my throat and begun wonderin' what it was I'd had for lunch that I shouldn't. My head felt kind of mean, too, sort of dull and throbby, and I expect I wasn't as ruddy in the face as I might have been.
Then up comes Vee, lookin' as fresh and nifty as if she was just steppin' out on the Avenue; and before I can duck behind anything she's spotted me.
"Why, Torchy," says she, "you don't mean to say you're feeling badly already! Or is it because you're leaving New York?"
Then I saw my alibi. I sighs and gazes mushy hack towards the land.
"I can't help it," says I. "I think a heap of that little old burg. It—it's been mother and father to me—all that sort of thing. I've hardly ever been away from it, you know, and I—I—" Here I smiles sad and makes a stab at swallowin' the lump.
"What a goose!" says Vee, but pats me soothin' on the shoulder. "Come, let's do a few turns around the deck."
"Thanks," says I, "but I guess I'd better just sit here quiet and—and try to forget."