The Voyage of the HoppergrassPearson, Edmund Lester
General
The Voyage of the Hoppergrass
Pearson, Edmund Lester
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Pirates -- Juvenile fiction
"Come on! come on!" we begged the other three, "let's go to the
Eagle House!"
"Why? What for?"
"That's the 'Hoppergrass' he said was stolen. Captain Bannister is
here,--at the Eagle House!"
"But he didn't say the 'Hoppergrass';--he said the Hannah
Billingsgate."
"Pettingell. That's the other name of the 'Hoppergrass'."
"The other name? Does she travel under an Elias, as Gregory the
Gauger calls it?"
"No, no! The captain doesn't like 'Hoppergrass' and he said he had
thought of changing the name. Come on,--let's go to the Eagle
House."
We made them understand at last, and then we started up the street
in the direction that the crier had pointed. On the way, Jimmy
Toppan was struck by doubts.
"I don't see how the Captain COULD change the name like this. You
have to register a new name for a boat, I think."
"You said that he was thinking of calling her the Hannah J. what
--is--it? Didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, it must be the same boat. There wouldn't be two
knocking about, with a name like that."
We found the hotel presently. There were two elderly men sitting
on the little piazza, and they hitched their chairs around and
watched us through the window as soon as we entered the office.
This room was empty, but after we had stamped and coughed a good
deal, a small man in shirt-sleeves came from some room in the
back.
"Is Captain Bannister here?"
"Bannister? Oh, no, Bannister aint here!"
This in a tone which was as much as to say: "I wouldn't have a man
like that on the premises."
"Well, he WAS here, wasn't he?"
"Was here? Oh, yes, he WAS here,--last night."
(As if to say: "He was here until we got on to him.")
"Has he gone away?"
"Gone away? Oh, yes, he's gone away."
This seemed to strike the two men on the piazza--whose ears were
almost stretching through the window--as a joke. They both laughed
uproariously. The hotel man was evidently unwilling to give up any
information until it was wrenched out of him, bit by bit. Mr.
Daddles continued the cross-examination.
"Do you know where he's gone?"
"Oh, he went away before six o'clock."
"Well, do you know WHERE he went?"
"Where? Oh, he told me--Joe, where'd he say he was goin'?"
One of the men on the piazza answered:
"Big Duck."
"Big Duck Island?"
"Yup. He--"
The other man broke in. "He says to me that he was goin' to
Rogerses'."
"Rogerses'? Where's that?"
"Rogerses' Island," said the hotel man, "'bout three miles t'other
side of Bailey's Harbor."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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