ing smile flashed out, "we don't want any more
than that, do we? I'll be content with the life I earn."

"It's a good thing, for that's all we'll get," was the terse reply.
"When some folks start to kick a brick wall, luck drops a feather pillow
between. Other people stub their toes. I ain't crying bad luck, because
I never had any; I'm just saying we'll stub our toes, if we kick the
wall. We don't have to kick it."

"Rupert is a philosopher," Gerard observed, not mockingly or in
ridicule, but as one stating a fact.

His mechanician nodded coolly.

"Calling names don't count. I've raced long enough to know a type of car
when I see it, and I've lived long enough to tell a type of man. The way
their heads set does it, maybe. Did you know the ladies were upstairs?"

"The ladies?" echoed Gerard, surprised. "They came with you?"

"Not precisely, I guess I came with them. Miss Rose saw me starting and
said she was coming over with her own little machine to see the launch
off, if she could get her cousin to come, and they'd bring me. So she
drove me over. I ain't used to that."

"Ladies?"

"Ladies' driving. My life's insured, so it was all right, though."

"Bully for Isabel!" Corrie approved, pensiveness cast aside. "Come up to
them, Gerard. I hear her tooting for us with the horn."

From the little scarlet runabout--the largest motor vehicle Mr. Rose
would allow his vigorous niece--Isabel and Flavia had descended.

"We came to see what you were doing," Isabel welcomed the group who
issued from the club-house. "I don't suppose Flavia would have come if
she hadn't been wondering whether Corrie was drowning himself. Go ahead
and start; don't wait on our account. But you had better eat your lunch
first, if you haven't already, for you will have no time to eat in the
boat on that sea."

"We haven't any lunch," Corrie cheerfully declared. "I gave it to a
tramp after I threw him overboard. You're just in time to take us home
for luncheon and save our lives."

"You look as if you had been fighting," Isabel criticized, with a
scornful survey of his attire. "You are all splashed with dirty water,
your cravat is pulled crooked and your coat is torn. We saw your tramp;
he passed us a few moments ago and we recognized your blue flannel suit
with the _Dear Me's_ insignia on the lapel. Mr. Rupert guessed what you
had been doing, when he saw the boat all in disorder and the pier all
wet. The man's hairy, dirty face looked horr