VI

About five o’clock the Wife quieted down and I thought it was safe to talk to her. “I’ve been readin’ in the guide about a pretty river trip,” I says. “We can start from here on the boat tomorrow mornin’. They run to Fort Pierce tomorrow and stay there tomorrow night. The next day they go from Fort Pierce to Rockledge, and the day after that from Rockledge to Daytona. The fare’s only five dollars apiece. And we can catch a northbound train at Daytona.”

“All right, I don’t care,” says the Missus.

So I left her and went downstairs and acrost the street to ask Mr. Foster. Ask Mr. Foster happened to be a girl. She sold me the boat tickets and promised she would reserve a room with bath for us at Fort Pierce, where we was to spend the followin’ night. I bet she knowed all the w’ile that rooms with a bath in Fort Pierce is scarcer than toes on a sturgeon.

I went back to the room and helped with the packin’ in an advisory capacity. Neither one of us had the heart to dress for dinner. We ordered somethin’ sent up and got soaked an extra dollar for service. But we was past carin’ for a little thing like that.

At nine o’clock next mornin’ the good ship Constitution stopped at the Poinciana dock w’ile we piled aboard. One bellhop was down to see us off and it cost me a quarter to get that much attention. Mrs. Potter must of overslept herself.

The boat was loaded to the guards and I ain’t braggin’ when I say that we was the best-lookin’ people aboard. And as for manners, why, say, old Bill Sykes could of passed off for Henry Chesterfield in that gang! Each one o’ them occupied three o’ the deck chairs and sprayed orange juice all