A door opened on the landing, and a voice drawled, "I say, you chaps, have you paid the bill?"
"Certainly," said I. "Come along. We've barely time to catch the steamer. Didn't you hear the whistle?"
"I heard something a little while ago, a sort of an ear-piercing shriek that startled me, and caused me to nick my chin with the razor. I shall have to put a bit of flesh-coloured plaster over it. Was that the whistle?" asked the Honourable John in the most tantalising, nonchalant way, as if he had all the day before him.
We looked up the stairway, and there he was on the landing, in his shirt-sleeves, slowly adjusting the ends of a salmon-coloured tie.
"The two minutes are up," said I, replacing my watch, and stooping for my portmanteau. At that moment the whistle sounded again, and I hurried away, followed by Syd, both of us muttering that the dawdler deserved to be left, but none the less hoping in our hearts that he would be in time.
The hotel was near the harbour, and we were soon aboard. On the bridge, between the paddle-boxes, the captain stood with the string attached to the syren in his hand; beside him, glancing at the compass-card, grasping the spokes of the wheel, and silently awaiting instructions, was one of the men; the mate was for'ard with his whistle; and two little knots of islanders were gathered about the moorings on the quay, ready to cast off the hawsers as soon as the paddles moved and the captain gave the word.
Loungers and holiday-makers were stirred into mild excitement by our expected departure. Exchanges of farewells, amid occasional shouts and a continuous ripple of laughter, were passing between those on board and those ashore. The usually quiet life of St. Mary's was bubbling up in its periodical agitation. By the outgoing and incoming of the steamer the islanders touched the great world without, and thrilled at the touch and felt its importance.
It was a pleasant scene, or it would have been but for the inexcusable delay of the Honourable John. We began to fear that he would be left. The captain pulled the string again, and the syren sounded, with a peculiar urgency, as it seemed to me, ending in a despairing wail; then, stepping to the indicator, he signalled to the engineer, and the paddles began to revolve. The forward hawser was thrown off and fell with a splash into the sea; astern we were yet alongside the quay.
The Honourable John appeared, resplendent in all the glory of a silk hat and frock coat, with a flower in his buttonhole, his hands gloved in lemon-coloured kids, and his feet shiny with patent leather; the people parted to let him pass, and stared at him as if he were a marquis at the very least, but the porter flung his portmanteau over the bulwarks like that of any other common tourist; John himself, with more agility than I gave him credit for, sprang aboard only just in time, as the men shouted "All clear aft, sir."