advice,” suggested Mr. Speed, seeking commendation.
“Just a bit hasty, sir.”
“Maybe, but there's nothing like handing folks a sample just to show up the quality of the whole piece.”
“I thank you—both of you,” said the grateful operator.
“You'd better lock your door,” advised Mayo. “Men are thoughtless when they have nothing to do except play.”
“I am so grateful! And I'm going to break an office rule,” volunteered the girl. “I shall send off your telegrams first.”
“And I hope you can tuck that little one in second—it won't take up much room!” pleaded Oakum Otie. “It's to help an awful pretty girl—looks are a good deal like yours!”
“I'll attend to it,” promised the young woman, blushing.
Outside in the village street Mr. Speed wiped his rough palm against the leg of his trousers and offered his hand to the captain. “I'll have to say good-by to you here, sir. I've got a little errunting to do—fig o' terbacker and a box of stror'b'ries. I confess to a terrible tooth for stror'b'ries. When the hanker ketches me and I can't get to stror'b'ries my stror'b'ry mark shows up behind my ear. I hope I have done right in sending off that tele-graft for her—but it's too bad that a landlubber beau is going to get such a pretty girl.” Then Oakum Otie sighed and melted away into the foggy gloom.
When Captain Mayo was half-way down the harbor, on his way back to the yacht, he was confronted by a spectacle which startled him. The fog was suddenly painted with a ruddy flare which spread high and flamed steadily. His first fears suggested that a vessel was on fire. The Olenia lay in that direction. He commanded his men to pull hard.
When he burst out of the mists into the zone of the illumination his misgivings were allayed, but his curiosity was roused.
A dozen yacht tenders flocked in a flotilla near the stern of a rusty old schooner. All the tenders were burning Coston lights, and from several boats yachtsmen were sending off rockets which striped the
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