"Toot! Toot! Toot!" came the warning whistle of an engine, and Aronson was dashing down the path, never stopping to pick up his hat that was lifted off by the wind, bent only on beating his steam-propelled rival to the station. It took him the whole journey townward to recover the wind he had lost in that unwonted quarter-mile run. People laughed at his hatless head, but he did not heed them. Besides, if he had been a philosopher, he might have retorted that hats on a dog-day are simply one of the nuisances of civilized conventionality. So he took a wharf car and in less than half an hour was running out to the edge of the great Red Star quay, there to behold the Venetia proudly backing into the channel on the flood of the tide and turning her head oceanward. I regret to say this spectacle filled Aronson with violent wrath, and the wharf loungers must have taken him for a wild man as he smote his fists together and danced about.
"Missed your boat?" inquired casually a sea-beaten man, but Aronson was too irate to appreciate his well-meant sympathy. He only ran to the edge of the wharf and looked off, shading his eyes from the glare of the water.
Presently he found the man at his elbow again.
"I can catch her for you if it's anything important," said the tar.
"I'll give you—I'll give you—" and then he checked himself, appalled at his own rashness. "How much will you charge?" he asked.
"Well, the Venetians steaming for a record this trip."
"How much?"
"She's got a start of a mile, and going twenty knots."
"How much?"
"There were some picnic folks I expected down here to charter my tug. Don't see them, but they may drop in. I suppose you'll allow something for the disappointment if they come."