"We 'll have breakfast as soon as we 're through the draw," said Romer. It occurred to Avery that it would be impossible to eat. He sat with his eyes fixed on the housetops of the West End. In the early air and color this decorous section had a misty and gracious effect, half mysterious, wholly uncharacteristic of that architectural commonplace. There was the tower of the Church of the Happy Saints. And three blocks beyond--Molly would be just about bringing up the tray, and setting it on the invalid table beside the blue lounge. "Somebody 's driving up back of the club," observed Tom Romer. "It's a buggy--looks a little like Thorne's, does n't it? Has those top wings. It's stopped at the river-wall." He handed the marine glass to his guest. "All those doctors' buggies are alike," replied Avery. "I can't see very well," he added. In fact, the glass shook in his hand. The yacht slipped through the draw comfortably, and headed to the harbor. The club, the river-wall, the buggy, vanished from the glass. The two gentlemen went below to breakfast. When they came on deck again, the Dream was easily clearing the harbor and making out to sea. The wind was fair, and the yacht fled under full canvas. "She walks right along!" cried Romer. He was exhilarated by the speed of his boat, which was, in fact, a racer, and built in all her lines to get over a triangular course in the least possible time. He talked about her safe points to the landsman (who responded with the satisfaction of ignorance), but the final end of the Dream's being was speed, unqualified by inferior considerations. To this American idol, boats, like men, are sacrificed as matters of course. One scarcely makes conversation on so obvious a topic. To tell the truth, Avery was not especially fond of yachting, and the careening of the Dream under the pleasant westerly did not arouse in him that enthusiasm which, somehow, he had expected to experience on this trip. When the water ran over the rail, he changed his seat to windward. When it rushed over, he held on to something. Tom Romer chaffed him amiably. "Why, this is only a fair sailing day!" he cried. "Wait till it breezes up." "Oh, I shall enjoy it if it comes," replied the lawyer. In fact, he was enjoying nothing. His thoughts surged like the water through which the yacht was driving. Their depth was enveloped and disguised in foam. When Romer said proudly, "She's making twelve knots!" his guest reflected, "I 'm so much farther away from her." The same personal pronoun answered for the sportsman and the husband. Before the Dream was off Plymouth, the little cruise had assumed the proportions of an Atlantic voyage to the landsman's imagination.