ING

Five o'clock in the afternoon, and a mild blue sea flashing under the
ever-deepening orange of the falling sun. Golden castles and gray
castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east; turrets
rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed. The
yacht _Laura_, sleek and swan-white, her ensign and colors folding and
unfolding, lifting and sinking, as the shore breeze stirred them, was
making ready for sea; and many of the villagers had come down to the
water front to see her off. Very few sea-going vessels, outside of
freighters, ever stopped in this harbor; and naturally the departures
of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals. The railroad
station was close to the wharves, and the old sailors hated the sight
of the bright rails; for the locomotive had robbed them of the
excitement of the semi-weekly packets that used to coast up and down
between New York and Philadelphia.

"Wonder what poor devil of a pirate is going to have his bones turned
over this trip?" said the station-agent to Mr. Donovan, who, among
others on the station platform, watched the drab anchor as it clanked
jerkily upward to the bows, leaving a swivel and a boil on the waters
which had released it so grudgingly.

"I guess it ain't goin' t' be any ol' pirate this time," replied Mr.
Donovan, with a pleasurable squeeze of the pocket-book over his heart.

"Well, I hope he finds what he's going after," generously. "He is the
mainstay of this old one-horse town. Say, she's a beauty, isn't she?
Why, man, that anchor alone is worth more than we make in four months.
And think of the good things to eat and drink. If I had a million, no
pirates or butterflies for mine. I'd hie me to Monte Carlo and bat the
tiger all over the place."

Mr. Donovan knew nothing definite about Monte Carlo, but he would have
liked to back up against some of those New York contractors on their
own grounds.

"Hi! There she goes. Good luck!" cried the station-agent, swinging
his hat with gusto.

The yacht swam out gracefully. There was a freshening blow from the
southwest, but it would take the yacht half an hour to reach the
deep-sea swells outside. Her whistle blew cheerily and was answered by
the single tug-boat moored to the railroad wharf. And after that the
villagers straggled back to their various daily concerns. Even the
landlord of Swan's Hotel sighed as he balanced up his books. Business
would be slack for