because I’ve tested. Let’s say 6.20, Crow, and get to Five Trees at about 6.45----"

"Addie, we can’t," broke in Christobel, dismayed, "we are simply bound to miss that train.  We are going awfully well, but it ought to take nearly an hour to reach the bridge, and then there’s all the work of stowing, and finding a man--and your hair--and the wire--Oh, we can’t do it!"

"Well, there’s only one other train, the last one, what’s that--leaves Salterne about five minutes to nine.  Beastly few trains!  Well, what do you say?"

Christobel considered with a disturbed expression of face.

"Well," went on Adrian, who quite refused to see any drawback to the joy of the situation, "well, look here, Crow.  We’ll try for the 6.20, and if we miss it we’ll go by the nine o’clock."

There was no doubt at all about the missing.  The wind lessened to a mere breath, and the tide was beginning to turn against them during their sail up the last long reach. They got to the bridge in a state of "sleepiness", as the skipper called it--so much so that they had to submit to receive assistance from a person of the "long-shore" kind, who had fastened a speculative eye upon them the moment they appeared at the turn by the big shipyard.  He came to meet them, in a clinker-built boat, rowing weightily--he was very like the men in W. W. Jacobs’ stories.  Adrian accepted a tow and the offer of "a little pair o-moorings where the old Fair Hope lays when she’s in harbour".

Adrian accepted, assuring Christobel over his shoulder that it was the only thing to do, and far the quickest.

The mariner went slow, slower; "slow as the wheels of evolution", as a certain story says.  He hailed kindred spirits on the quay, and the small matter of picking up a moorings buoy was turned into a positive function--and would have to be paid for as such, of course!

Christobel groaned aloud, then laughed.  It was no use worrying.

Adrian, whistling between disparaging remarks on the manners and customs of long-shore persons, took it easily.

"Lots of time before nine o’clock, Crow," he said.

They went into the town about the time the 6.20 p.m. arrived at Salterne, and sent off their wire.  After that the skipper resigned herself to calm enjoyment.  The afternoon, since the storm dispersed, had 

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