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The idea had just occurred to him that by obtaining a position with Bartlett & Bangs he could add another link to the chain that was to bind him to Eleanor. "You don't happen to have a job for me?" he inquired of the back of Mr. Bangs's bald, dome-like head. "A job?" repeated Mr. Bangs, glancing over his shoulder at Quin's uniform. "Yes, sir. I'm out of the service now." "What can you do?"
He had not stopped for his hat and coat, but he had caught a vision of Bangs's astonished face and half of his startled exclamation, "What the dev " The elevator came and Laurie leaped into it. "Down," he said briefly. The operator was on his way up to the twelfth floor, but something in the expression of his passenger made him change his plans. Also it accelerated his movements.
Henry Burns had the tack tied down in a jiffy; whereupon Harvey drew the sail aft, hauled out on the pendant and passed a lashing. Henry Burns and Little Tim had the reef points tied in no time. Before Mr. Bangs's wondering eyes the sail was hoisted, the topping lift set up, and the boat got under way again before he had had hardly time to think what had happened.
Deputy Bangs's first hail, when Elias opened the door and stood revealed, was contemptuously brusque; he used the tone he commonly employed toward his charges in prison; he perceived at first only the queer old chap, the dusty plodder of the highways, the man of cracked wits. Bangs spoke as an officer, peremptorily: "Say, you! Come over here. I want to talk with you!"
He tried to think of what future days would be without Bangs's exuberant personality to fill them with work and color; but he could not picture them; and as the effort merely added to the gloom that enveloped him, he abandoned it and again gave himself up to thoughts of Doris. As he hurried into his clothes a strong temptation came to him to tell Bangs the whole story.
He had received such a scoffing note in reply that his ears tingled even now as he thought of it. It was only when he recalled the postscript that he found consolation. "How funny that you should get a position at Bartlett & Bangs's," she had written. "If you should happen to meet any member of my family, for heaven's sake don't mention my name.
Bangs's yachtsmanship, and observing the freshening of the wind, and the fact that the craft was not being worked to windward anywhere near what it would go, slipped astern beside Mr. Bangs. "Like to have me tend that sheet for you?" he asked, carelessly. Mr. Bangs waved him back. "Don't touch that, my lad," he cried. "You might upset us in a minute. Never let a boy fool with a sheet hello!"
Miss Dawes, who had come out to see the start, looked at the "sulky," then at Mr. Bangs's face, and turned her back. Her shoulders shook: "It used to be a real nice carriage when Ezra had it," commented the widow admiringly. "It needs ilin' and sprucin' up now, but I guess 'twill do. Come!" to Bailey, who had not risen from the chopping block. "Hurry up and harness or we'll never get started.
The men worked round the edge of the bunch and slipped a noose on every calf that was thrown to the edge of the constantly shifting mass. Morrow roped the first calf and dragged it to the fire. A cow darted away with her calf and Bangs's horse whirled to head her back.
"Why, yes, that is it. I was told there was a hotel here, but they forgot to tell me it was open only in the summer. What sort of place is this Roger's Hotel?" Martha looked at him and then at Galusha. "Altogether too bad for any relation of Mr. Bangs's to go to," she declared. "At least, to eat supper. You and Mr. Bangs will excuse me, won't you? I'll be right back."
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