We laughed.
"Why don't you sail, Mr. Farrar?" asked Mrs. Cooke.
"He can't do any harm in this breeze," Farrar replied; "it isn't strong enough to get anywhere with."
He was right. The boom gybed twenty times that morning, and the Celebrity offered an equal number of apologies. Mr. Cooke and the Four vanished, and from the uproarious laughter which arose from the cabin transoms I judged they were telling stories. While Miss Thorn spent the time profitably in learning how to conn a yacht. At one, when we had luncheon, Mohair was still in the distance. At two it began to cloud over, the wind fell flat, and an ominous black bank came up from the south. Without more ado, Farrar, calling on me to give him a hand, eased down the halliards and began to close reef the mainsail.
"Hold on," said the Celebrity, "who told you to do that?"
"I am very sure you didn't," Farrar returned, as he hauled out a reef earing.
Here a few drops of rain on the deck warned the ladies to retire to the cabin.
"Take the helm until I get my mackintosh, will you, Farrar?" said the
Celebrity, "and be careful what you do."
Farrar took the helm and hauled in the sheet, while the Celebrity, Mr. Cooke, and the guests donned their rain-clothes. The water ahead was now like blue velvet, and the rain pelting. The Maria was heeling to the squall by the time the Celebrity appeared at the cabin door, enveloped in an ample waterproof, a rubber cover on his yachting cap. A fool despises a danger he has never experienced, and our author, with a remark about a spanking breeze, made a motion to take the wheel. But Farrar, the flannel of his shirt clinging to the muscular outline of his shoulders, gave him a push which sent him sprawling against the lee refrigerator. Well Miss Thorn was not there to see.
"You will have to answer for this," he cried, as he scrambled to his feet and clutched the weather wash-board with one hand, while he shook the other in Farrar's face.