How about you, Simms?"

"As you know, Ellins," says J. Dudley, "I am a timid, fearsome person.

Do I understand that you three a.s.sume all responsibility, all risks?"

"Absolutely," says Mr. Ellins.

"Then here is an opportunity to indulge in vicarious adventure," says Dudley, "which I can't afford to miss. I'll go; but I shall expect when the time comes, Ellins, that you will conduct yourself in an utterly reckless manner, while I watch you through a porthole."

"And you, Professor?" goes on Mr. Ellins.

"If I can secure a specimen of the _rivoluta splendens_," says Leonidas, "I shall gladly take any chances."

"Isn't the dear Professor just too heroic?" coos Mrs. Mumford. "It will be worth while going merely to see what a _rivoluta splendens_ really is."

"We seem to be agreed," says Old Hickory, "and our company is made up.

That is, with two exceptions."

"Great Scott!" I whispers to Vee. "Two more freaks to come!"

"Listen," says Vee. "Auntie is saying something."

So she is, a whole mouthful.

"My niece, Verona, will accompany me, of course," she announces.

"Well, ain't that rough!" says I. "Now what's the sense in draggin'

you off down--"

"And I am obliged," breaks in Mr. Ellins, "to take with me, for purely business reasons, my private secretary. Mrs. Hemmingway, isn't the young man somewhere about the place?"

"Good night!" I gasps. "Me!"

"Well, I like that!" says Vee, givin' me a pinch.

"Take it back," says I. "If it's a case of us goin', that's different.

But what a bunch to go cruisin' with!"

And say, when I'm led out and introduced, I must have acted like I was in a trance. I got it so sudden, you see, and so unexpected. Here I'd been sittin' back all the while and knockin' this whole thing as a squirrel-house expedition, besides pa.s.sin' comments on the crowd; and the next thing I know I'm counted in, with my name on the pa.s.senger list.

That was two days ago; and while I've been movin' around lively enough ever since, windin' things up at the office, hirin' a wireless operator for Mr. Ellins, and layin' in a stock of Palm Beach suits and white deck shoes, I ain't got over the jolt yet.

"Say, Mr. Robert," says I, when no one else is around, "how long can anybody be seasick and live through it?"

"Oh, it is seldom fatal," says he. "The victims linger on and on."

"Hal-lup!" says I. "And I'll bet that roly-poly Mrs. Mumford comes twice a day to coo to me. What did I ever get let in on this private seccing for, anyway?"

CHAPTER XII

TORCHY HITS THE HIGH SEAS

Well, I got to take it all back--most of it, anyway. For, between you and me, this bein' a seagoing private sec. ain't the worst that can happen. Not so far as I've seen.

What I'm most chesty over, though, is the fact that I've been through the wop and wiggle test without feedin' the fishes. You see, when the good yacht _Agnes_ leaves Battery Park behind, slides down past Staten Island and the Hook, and out into the Ambrose Channel, I'm feelin' sort of low. I'd been lookin' our course up on the map, and, believe me, from where New York leaves off to where the tip end of Florida juts out into the Gulf Stream is some wide and watery jump. No places to get off at in between, so far as I can dope out. It's just a case of b.u.t.tin' right out into the Atlantic and keepin' on and on.

We hadn't got past Scotland Lightship before the _Agnes_ begins that monotonous heave-and-drop stunt. Course, it ain't any motion worth mentionin', but somehow it sort of surprises you to find that it keeps up so constant. It's up and down, up and down, steady as the tick of a clock; and every time you glance over the rail or through a porthole you see it's quite a ride you take. I didn't mind goin' up a bit; it's that blamed feelin' of bein' let down that's annoyin'.

For a while there I was more or less busy helping Old Hickory get his floating office straightened out and taking down a few code messages for the wireless man to send back to the general offices while we was still within easy strikin' distance. It was when I planted myself in a wicker chair 'way back by the stern, and begun watchin' that slow, regular lift and dip of the deck, that I felt this lump come in my throat and begun wonderin' what it was I'd had for lunch that I shouldn't. My head felt kind of mean, too, sort of dull and throbby, and I expect I wasn't as ruddy in the face as I might have been.

Then up comes Vee, lookin' as fresh and nifty as if she was just steppin' out on the Avenue; and before I can duck behind anything she's spotted me.

"Why, Torchy," says she, "you don't mean to say you're feeling badly already! Or is it because you're leaving New York?"

Then I saw my alibi. I sighs and gazes mushy hack towards the land.

"I can't help it," says I. "I think a heap of that little old burg.

It--it's been mother and father to me--all that sort of thing. I've hardly ever been away from it, you know, and I--I--" Here I smiles sad and makes a stab at swallowin' the lump.

"What a goose!" says Vee, but pats me soothin' on the shoulder. "Come, let's do a few turns around the deck."

"Thanks," says I, "but I guess I'd better just sit here quiet and--and try to forget."

"Nonsense!" says Vee. "That's a silly way to act. Besides, you ought to tramp around and get the feel of the boat. You'll be noticing the motion if you don't."

"Pooh!" says I. "What this old boat does is beneath my notice. She's headed away from Broadway, that's all I know about her. But if you want someone to trail around the deck with, I'm ready. Only I ain't apt to be very cheerful, not for a while yet."

Say, that dope of Vee's about gettin' the feel of the boat was a good hunch. Once you get it in your legs the soggy feelin' under your vest begins to let up. Also your head clears. Why, inside of half an hour I'm steppin' out brisk with my chin up, breathin' in great chunks of salt air and meetin' that heave of the deck as natural as if I'd walked on rubber pavements all my life. After that, whenever I got to havin'

any of them up and down sensations in the plumbin' department, I dashed for the open air and walked it down.

Lucky I could, too; for about Friday afternoon we ran into some weather that was the real thing. It had been cloudy most of the mornin', with the wind makin' up, and around three o'clock there was whitecaps as far as you could see. Nothin' monotonous or reg'lar about the motion of the _Agnes_ then. She'd lift up on one of them big waves like she was stretchin' her neck to see over the top; then, as it rolled under her, she'd tip to one side until it looked like she was tryin' to spill us, and she'd slide down into a soapsudsy hollow until she met a solid wall of green water.

"This is what we generally get off Hatteras," says Vee, who has shown up in a green oiled silk outfit and has joined me in a sheltered spot under the bridge. "Isn't it perfectly gorgeous?"

"It's all right for once," says I, "providin' it don't last too long.

Everyone below enjoyin' it, are they?"

"Oh, Auntie's been in her berth for hours," says Vee. "She never takes any chances. But Mrs. Mumford tried to sit up and crochet. Helma's trying to take care of her, and she can hardly hold her head up. They are both quite sure they're going to die at once. You should hear them taking on."

"How is it this don't get you, too?" says I.

"I've always been a good sailor," says Vee. "And, anyway, a storm is too thrilling to waste the time being seasick. I always want to stay up around, too, and repeat that little verse of Kipling's. You know--

'When the cabin portholes are dark and green, Because of the seas outside, When the ship goes wop with a wiggle between, And the cook falls into the soup tureen, And the trunks begin to slide--'