he _car_?'

"'Good land!' I says, starin' at him. 'What else d'you s'pose? Think I'd
let seventy-five hundred dollars' wuth of gilt-edged extravagance go to
the bottom? What did you cal'late I was tryin' to save--the clam-flat?
Give me that dory-rope; I'm goin' after them anchors. Sufferin' snakes!
Where is the dory? What have you done with it?'

"He'd been holdin' the bight of the dory-rodin'. I handed it to him so's
he'd have somethin' to take up his mind. And, by time, he'd forgot all
about it and let it drop! And the dory had gone adrift and was out of
sight.

"'Gosh!' says he, astonished-like. 'Pard, the son of a gun has slipped
his halter!'

"I was pretty mad--dories don't grow on every beach-plum bush--but there
wan't nothin' to say that fitted the case, so I didn't try.

"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, I'll have to swim ashore that's all, and go up
to the station inlet after another boat. You stand by the ship. If she
gets afloat afore I come back you honk and holler and I'll row after
you. I'll fetch the anchors and we'll moor her wherever she happens to
be. If she shouldn't float on an even keel, or goes to capsize, you jump
overboard and swim ashore. I'll----'

"'Swim?' says he, with a shake in his voice. 'Why, pard, I can't swim!'

"I turned and looked at him. Shover of a two-mile-a-minute gold-plated
butcher-cart like that, a cowboy murderer that et his friends for
breakfast--and couldn't swim! I fetched a kind of combination groan and
sigh, turned back the sail, climbed aboard the automobile, and lit up my
pipe.

"'What are you settin' there for?' says he. 'What are you goin' to do?'

"'Do?' says I. 'Wait, that's all--wait and smoke. We won't have to wait
long.'

"My prophesyin' was good. We didn't have to wait very long. It was pitch
dark, foggy as ever, and the tide a risin' fast. The floats got to be
awash. I shinned out on to 'em picked up the oar that had been left
there, and took my seat again. Billings climbed in too, only--and it
kind of shows the change sence the previous evenin'--he was in the
passenger-cockpit astern and I was for'ard in the pilot house. For a
reckless dare-devil he was actin' mighty fidgety.

"And at last one of the floats swung off the sand. The automobile
tipped scandalous. It looked as if we was goin' on our beam-ends.
Billings let out an awful yell. Then t'other float bobbed up and the
whole shebang, car and all, drifted out and down the channel.

"My lashin's held-