The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 18

"If you don't agree, and they go 'botoring' without you, you can't get either."

"That's true. Most disagreeable things are. And there's just a chance, if you get dangerous, that Tibe might polish you off. I saw the way he looked at you. Well, needs must when somebody drives. It's a bargain then. I'll tell the girls what a kind, generous Dutch friend I have.

We'll be villains together."

IX

We settled that Starr should see Miss Van Buren and Miss Rivers and tell them that skipper, chauffeur, and chaperon all being provided, there was nothing to prevent the tour beginning to-morrow. Having done this, without bringing in his obliging friend's name, he was to meet me at the Rowing Club at three o'clock with a detailed report of all that had happened up to date.

Never was time slower in pa.s.sing. Each minute seemed as long as the dying speech of a tragedian who fancies himself in a death scene. I wanted to use some of these minutes in writing to Robert, but it would be premature to tell him that I was going to look after his cousin and her sister on the trip, as the ladies might abandon it, rather than put up with my society.

When ten minutes past three came, and no Starr, I was certain that they would not have me. I could hardly have been gloomier if I'd been waiting for a surgical operation. But another five minutes brought my confederate, and the first sight of his face sent my spirits up with a bound.

"It's all right," he said. "They've come back from Scheveningen. I saw them at their hotel, and they're more beautiful than ever. They were prostrate with grief at hearing I hadn't been able to get hold of a skipper; consequently they were too excited to ask your name when I gave them the cheering news that a Dutch friend had come to the rescue. They simply swallowed you whole, and clamored for the next course, so I added the--er--glad tidings of my aunt's arrival this evening, and poured the last drop of joy in their cup by saying we could start to-morrow.

They're going to bring most of their things on board after tea this afternoon, about five. Oh, by the way, just as I was leaving, Miss Van Buren did call after me, 'Is your friend nice?'"

I laughed. "What did you answer?"

"I thought one more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is that another--figure of speech?"

"I always think and speak of myself as wholly Dutch," I replied. "But my mother is English. By-the-by, I must telegraph her; and I must write my man to bring me some clothes the first thing to-morrow morning. Then you'd better send for the chauffeur you've engaged; and we'll go together to interview him on the boat before the ladies come. I think--er--it won't be best for me to meet them till to-morrow. Are you sure your chauffeur's a good man?"

"Not at all," said Starr, airily. "I merely know that he's a very young youth, who makes you feel like a grandfather at twenty-seven; who wriggles and turns pink if you speak to him suddenly, and when he wants his handkerchief to mop his perpetually moist forehead, pulls yards of cotton waste out of his pocket, by mistake. I've only his word for it--which I couldn't understand, as it was in Dutch--that he has the slightest knowledge of any motor. But he showed me written references, and seemed so proud of what they set forth, I thought they must be all right, though I couldn't read them."

"You're a queer fellow!" I exclaimed.

"Well, you see, I'm an artist--neither motorist nor botorist. By the way, what are you, beyond being van Buren's friend?"

"A Jack of several trades," said I. "I know a bit about horses, botors, motors; I fancy I'm a judge of dogs (I congratulate you on Tibe), also of chauffeurs, so come along and we'll put yours through his paces."

It now appeared that Starr had the youth on board. So I sent my two telegrams, and we started to walk to the boat. On the way Starr told me more than I had heard from Robert about his first dealings with "Lorelei," and we discussed details of the trip. The ladies have no choice, it appears, except that they will feel ill-used if allowed to miss anything. As for Starr, he confessed blissful ignorance of Holland.

"I want to go where cows wear coats, and women wear gold helmets, and dogs have revolving kennels," he said. "And I want to paint everything I see."

"Cows wear coats at Gouda. I expect you read that in Carlyle's 'Sartor Resartus.' Women wear gold helmets in Friesland. Dogs have revolving kennels in Zeeland," I told him. "And if you want to paint everything you see, we shall be gone a long time."

"All the better," said Starr.

I agreed.

"It would be useful if _you_ could plan out a trip," he went on. "It would help to account for you, you know, and make you popular."

I caught at this idea. There are a good many places that I should like to show Miss Van Buren, and visit with her. "I should have preferred her seeing my country on our wedding-trip," I said to myself. "This is the next best, though, and we can have the honeymoon in Italy." But aloud I remarked that I would map out something and submit it to my pa.s.sengers in the morning.

My mother laughs, telling me that I must always go in for any new fad, whatever it may be, and that she expects some day to see several makes of airs.h.i.+p tethered on the lawn at Liliendaal, or tied to our chimneys at The Hague in winter. There's something in her jibe, perhaps; but it would be a queer thing, indeed, if a son of the water-country didn't turn to "botoring," provided he had any soul for sport. We Hollanders made practical use of motor-boats while the people of dry lands still poked ridicule at them in comic ill.u.s.trated papers; therefore this will be by no means my first experience. I had that three years ago with a racer, and again with a barge which I fitted up with a twenty horse-power motor, and used for a whole summer, after which, in a generous mood, I gave her as a wedding-gift to my chauffeur, whose bride's greatest ambition was for barge-life. Since that time I've always meant to get something good in the botoring line, but haven't made up my mind what it ought to be.

I did myself no more than justice in telling Starr that I was as desirable a man as he could find for skipper; and I shook hands with myself for every hour of botoring I had done. Thanks to past experience I can now do chauffeur's work, if necessary, as well as skipper's.

We found the "very young youth" on deck, industriously polis.h.i.+ng bra.s.s-work, and his complexion bore out Starr's description as I questioned him about his former situations. It seems there was only one, and with a small boat; but the motor was the same as this.

The arrangement of "Lorelei's" deck aft pleases me particularly, for it might have been designed to suit my purpose. That purpose is to have as much of Miss Van Buren's society as possible during this trip.

Consequently I saw with pleasure that the pa.s.sengers in their deck-chairs must group round the skipper at his wheel, as there is no other comfortable place. There will be no notice up on board "Lorelei": "Please do not speak to the man at the wheel." The more he is spoken to--by the right person--the better he will like his job. What I have to pray for is dry weather, that the ladies may spend their days on deck, for just as much time as they spend below I shall consider that I am wasting. Indeed, I regret the attractiveness of the cabins, for I fear there may be a temptation to dawdle there, or lie among cus.h.i.+ons on the comfortable seat-bunks on a gray or chilly day. "I hope she's as much interested in scenery as she apparently is in history," I said to myself as Starr and I wandered over the boat, "for the skipper-job can be combined with the business of lecturer and _cicerone_, if that proves a bid for popularity."

Aft of the cabins is the motor-house; and hearing our voices through the skylight, chauffeur Hendrik left the bra.s.s-work and came to stand by his engine. I immediately determined to study this engine thoroughly, so that if Hendrik's intelligence prove untrustworthy in an emergency, mine may be prepared to a.s.sist it.

He soon saw that it was useless to "show off" before me, but he enjoyed explaining the motor in broken English to Starr. The American artist heard with a vague smile the difference between the ordinary four-cycle engine of an automobile, and the two-cycle engine of this marine motor, with its piston receiving an impulse at each down stroke; tried to understand how the charge of vaporized petrol was drawn into the crank-chamber, and there slightly compressed; how the gas afterwards traveled along a by-pa.s.s into the firing chamber at the upper part of the cylinder, to be further compressed by the up-stroke of the piston and fired by the sparking plug, while the burnt gases escaped through a port uncovered by the piston in its downward strokes, admission and exhaust being thus controlled by the piston movement alone.

"Great heavens! I wronged this good youth," the patient listener cried, when he found a chance to speak. "I thought him all pinkness, and perspiration, and purple velvet slippers, but he can pull information by the yard out of his brain, as he does cotton waste out of his pocket.

Unfortunately, it's waste too, as far as I'm concerned; for I don't know any more about this motor now than I did when he began. The tap of my intelligence always seems to be turned off the minute anything technical or mechanical is mentioned. Some of those things he said sounded more like the description of a lunatic asylum than anything else, and the only impression left on my mind is one of dreadful gloom."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it seems impossible that anything which has to do so much at the same time as this engine does, can remember to do half of it. It will certainly fail, and blow up with those we love on board. I never thought of that until now, and shouldn't if Hendrik hadn't explained things to me."

"We can't blow up unless the petrol gets on fire," said I, "and as the tank's away at the bow of the boat and the petrol descends to the engine by gravity and not pressure, you needn't have nightmare on that subject."

"That's another horror I hadn't realized," groaned Starr. "I took things for granted, and trusted other people to know them. A whole tank of petrol at the bow! How much will there be in it?"

"Enough to last four days."

"One of the ladies is sure to set it on fire when she's curling her hair with a spirit-lamp. Yet we can't forbid them to curl their hair on their own boat. Perhaps they'd better sleep on the barge, after all. I meant it to be for the men of the party."

"Nonsense," said I. "They're reasonable creatures. Besides, Miss Van Buren's hair curls naturally."

"How can you know?"

"Well, I do." And before my eyes arose the picture of a bright G.o.ddess of foam and spray.

"Hum! I begin to see which way the wind blows. I'm not sure she isn't the one I myself----"

"We were talking about the motor," I cut in. "The water jacketing seems thoroughly carried out; and when the party's a.s.sembled on deck, it will hear no more noise than the buzzing of a big bee, as the exhaust is led away below the water-line. It won't be bad in the cabins either, even when they keep the sliding door open, for this screen of thick sail-cloth will deaden what sound there is. And it was a smart idea to utilize the power of the magneto to light up the whole boat with those incandescent burners."

"Your mechanical information, on top of Hendrik's, is giving me a kind of acute mental dyspepsia," sighed Starr. "I hate well-informed people; they're so fond of telling you things you don't want to know. Still, I realize that you're going to be useful in a way, so I suppose I must make the best of you; and, anyhow, we shan't see much of each other, except at meals."

"Shan't we? Why, are you going to spend most of your time on board your barge, steering?"

"Not I. I've engaged a man. Didn't I tell you. A nice, handy man, not too big for his boots, or rather, his carpet slippers. He'll cook, sweep, dust, and make beds as well as keep the barge steady."

"While I'm skipper of 'Lorelei,' n.o.body wears carpet slippers, or purple velvet ones either, on board this boat or her tender. I suppose, if you're not going to steer, you mean to occupy yourself in your studio, painting. A wise arrangement----"

"From your point of view. But it isn't my intention. I shall--if the ladies don't object--sit mostly on 'Lorelei's' deck, making sketches, and entertaining them as well as I know how--though not with technical information."

"I shall be there to give them that, if they want it," said I.

"_You?_ You'll have to be at the bow, skippering."