The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht VikingSmith, Ruel Perley
General
The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht Viking
Smith, Ruel Perley
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Sea stories
“Not any,” laughed Henry Burns. “He’s everything you say he is, and I
think he is one of the most generous men I ever met. There, don’t that
satisfy you? But I’ll tell you one thing, Jack. I was just thinking I
shouldn’t want to be in Mr. Carleton’s way if he had made up his mind to
do a certain thing. He’s the kind of a man that wouldn’t be interfered
with when once he was decided.”
“How do you make that out?” asked Harvey.
“Oh, just by a lot of little things,” answered Henry Burns, “not any of
them of any particular consequence of themselves. By the way, do you
remember inviting him to sail down the river?”
“Why, not exactly,” replied Harvey, somewhat puzzled.
“Well, you didn’t,” said Henry Burns, laughing quietly. “He invited
himself. He said, ‘I’ll sail down with you,’ or ‘I’ll go along with you,’
or something of that sort.
“And do you remember inviting him to go out sailing on this trip?”
continued Henry Burns.
“No,” replied Harvey, a little impatiently.
“That’s because he invited himself,” said Henry Burns, still smiling. “I
remember that he said, ‘I’ll go out sailing with you to-morrow.’ That
settled it in his mind.”
“Well, what of it?” asked Harvey.
“Nothing,” replied Henry Burns. “I’m just as glad as you are that he
proposed it. I’ve enjoyed his company and his generosity. I only say he
is a man that I’d rather have for a friend than an enemy.”
Jack Harvey laughed.
“Well, you may be right,” he said. “I never think of looking at anybody
as deep as that. If a man comes along and wants a sail and wants some
fun, and is willing to do his share, why, that’s enough for me. And if
he’s up to any tricks, why, he and I’ll fight and have it over with. I
don’t worry about what might happen.”
“Did you ever see me worry about anything?” asked Henry Burns.
“Why, no,” said Harvey, emphatically, “I never did. I meant that I don’t
think about things just as you do.”
Which was certainly true.
If Mr. Carleton had any notion in his head that he had, as Harvey had
suggested, hired a larger room for him and Henry Burns than was really
needed—or if he had any notion in his head that he had wasted his money
in hiring any rooms at all at the hotel—he showed no sign of it when he
appeared in the office and they went into the dining-room. Indeed, he
thought it a good joke on Henry Burns that he should have had to go off
to the yacht for the night, and he laughed very heartily over it, behind
his big moustache.
The wind was blowing fresh from the south as the party went out on the
hotel piazza. It had started up early in the morning, along with the
beginning of the flood-tide, which meant, in all likelihood, that it
would blow fresher from now on until sundown. There were already
whitecaps to be seen over all the bay, and the yachts that were out under
sail were lying over to it and throwing the spray smartly. It was a good
morning to show the fine sailing qualities of a boat, and they were eager
to be off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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