"Wait!" cried M. Lemaire, persuasively, and Benson, halted, looking at him. "Of course I cannot offer you a lift back to town," continued the Frenchman, smilingly, "for that would be ungallant. But Mlle. Nadiboff, who had the pleasure of your company out here will, I know, be most delighted at having your company on the return."
"Assuredly," added the young Russian woman, with one of those charming smiles that had failed so utterly with the submarine boy. "I shall feel most offended if Captain Benson does penance by walking all the miles back to Spruce Beach."
"I'd be a fool, then, to take that long walk back, when I can ride," thought Captain Jack.
So he turned, retracing his steps and bowing to the young woman.
"Yet, before we start," proposed M. Lemaire, anxiously, "let us see,
Captain, if we cannot yet come to some arrangement."
"Well?" demanded Jack, for boyish curiosity tempted him to find how far this Frenchman was willing to go.
"Captain Benson," proposed Lemaire, "let us say that the price for what
I ask shall be fifteen thousand dollars."
"You're not getting anywhere near my price, M. lemaire," laughed the submarine boy, derisively.
"You are playing with me—laughing at me!" cried the Frenchman, yet he spoke cheerily, for now he began to hope that this American boy might yet be induced to sell himself, body, soul and honor.
"We may as well drop this line of talk," hinted Jack Benson. "You were good enough to offer me a ride back to town, I believe?"