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By this time the men who had gone below for that purpose had returned with a good supply of coal, and a heavy fusillade of the black lumps kept the sharks at a distance, at any rate for the moment. Kettle heaved in smartly, and eager hands gripped the pair as they swirled up alongside, and there they were on the lighter's deck, spitting, dripping, and gasping.
He hoped they would find a housekeeper at the first house on that mountain road, but that lunch of Lighter's gave him a sense of security, like a reserve fund, inadequate, yet something against imminent panic. Miss Armitage did not return to her seat when he was gone.
But a Dutchman's lighter is as sacred, Alb has explained to us all, as a Dutchman's house; and when the loud, explosive Scotsman arrived on the gunwale, uninvited and breathing fire, the lighter's owner proceeded also to breathe fire. He swore; his Kees dog yapped; his children cried and his wife vituperated.
"I'd forget my ears if they weren't sewed down." Then he turned, heading back toward his bed, hoping that whoever was waiting outside would assume he would be back immediately. At the same time, he lifted his thumb off the lighter's contact. Then he sat down on the edge of his bed and quickly pulled off his boots. Holding them both in his hands, he moved silently back to the door.
They had opened up several of the captured cases of ammunition, and had thrown their contents into one big heap in the middle of the lighter's deck, so that every man might the more easily help himself; and the prisoner congratulated himself that he was at some distance from the pile, for he had no desire to repeat his experience of a few days previously.
Dick wondered whether it had broken, but he would know in the next few seconds; there was a sharp jerk, the launch was dragged to leeward, but recovered and forged ahead. She plunged her bows into a broken swell and the spray filled Dick's eyes, but when he could see again the foam was sliding past and a gap widened between the lighter's hull and the white wash on the rock.
Lighter's hand dropped from the edge of the buggy seat. He stepped back to the heads of his team. "You get in, Harry," he said. "Drive 'em five or six blocks. Keep your eyes open." Harry gathered the reins warily and sprang in; Lighter released his hold, then hurried forward to the driveway and stood with Tisdale watching the team. "Ain't they a sight?" he said. And they were.
"I mean, master, when there's work to be done, the work should be done; but when there's plenty of time, and everything is safe, and all ready for a start the next morning, I can see no possible objection to a jollification. Come, master, rouse out; the lighter's abreast of the Hospital almost by this time, and we must put you on shore."
A good title. I had paid the butcher, but the grocer was still waiting. So I dismissed my motorboat and grimly turned to scows instead. Children by the dozen were making friends from barge to barge. Dogs were all about us and they too were busy visiting. High up on the roof of a coal lighter's cabin an impudent little skye-terrier kept barking at the sooty men who were shoveling down below.
Things were beginning to get rather too warm for the prisoner where he was, he felt; especially as certain screams and cries from those about him indicated that the volley had been excellently directed. He therefore determined to seek shelter without further delay for he had no wish to be killed by his own party and hastily dragged himself into the shelter of the lighter's low bulwark.
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