At twenty minutes to two, Saturday afternoon, I landed my entire party at the dock, foot o’ Wabash Avenue.
“Goody!” says Bess. “We’re goin’ acrost the lake.”
“If the boat stays up.”
“I don’t know if I ought to go or not,” says Bishop. “I’d ought to be where I can keep in touch with the Criterion people.”
“They got a wireless aboard,” I says.
“Yes,” says Bishop; “but they wouldn’t know where to reach me.”
“You got time to phone ’em before we sail,” says I.
“No, he hasn’t,” says Bessie. “He ain’t goin’ to take no chance o’ missin’ this boat. He can send ’em a wireless after we start.”
So that settled Bishop, and he had to walk up the gangplank with the rest of us. He looked just as pleased as if they’d lost his laundry.
I checked the baggage and sent the three o’ them up on deck, sayin’ I’d join ’em later. Then I ast a boy where the bar was.
“Right in there,” he says, pointin’. “But you can’t get nothin’ till we’re three miles out.”
So I went back to the gangplank and started off the boat. A man about four years old, with an addin’ machine in his hand, stopped me.
“Are you goin’ to make the trip?” he ast me.
“What do you think I’m on here for—to borrow a match?” says I.
“Well,” he says, “you can’t get off.”
“You’re cross!” I says. “I bet your milk don’t agree with you.”