arting with him Mrs. Buskirk was rather more gracious than when she
received him. "I hope when you call again," she said, "that you may find
my husband at home. I know he will be glad to see you!"

As Burke jingled and pranced away he grinned behind his great fur
collar. "She'll call!" said he to himself. "She'll call on the yacht if
she doesn't call on anything else!"

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. CLIFF'S YACHT

When the interview with Mrs. Buskirk was reported that afternoon to Mrs.
Cliff, the good lady sat aghast. "I've decided about the park," she
said, "and that is all very well. But what do you mean by a yacht? What
could be more ridiculous than to talk about me and a yacht!"

"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Burke. "It's nothing of the kind! The more I
think of the idea, the better I like it, and if you'll think of it
soberly, I believe you'll like it just as much as I do! In the first
place, you've got to do something to keep your money from being dammed
up and running all over everything. This house and furniture cleared
away things for a time, but the whole business will be just as much
clogged up as it was before if you don't look out. I don't want to give
advice, but it does strike me that anybody as rich as you are oughtn't
to feel that they could afford to sit still here in Plainton, year in
and year out, no matter how fine a house they might have! They ought to
think of that great heap of gold in the mound and feel that it was their
duty to get all the grand and glorious good out of it that they knew
how!"

"But it does seem to me," said Mrs. Cliff, "that a yacht would be an
absolute extravagance and waste of money. And, you know, I have firmly
determined I will not waste my money."

"To call sittin' in a beautiful craft, on a rollin' sea, with a
spankin' breeze, a waste of money, is something I can't get into my
brain!" said Mr. Burke. "But you could do good with a yacht. You could
take people out on cruises who would never get out if you didn't take
them! And now I've an idea! It's just come to me. You might get a really
big yacht. If I was you, I'd have a steam yacht, because you'd have more
control over that than you'd have over a sailin'-vessel, and besides a
person can get tired of sailin'-vessels, as I've found out myself. And
then you might start a sort of summer shelter for poor people; not only
very poor people, but respectable people, who never get a chance to
sniff salt air. And you might spend p