The poster pictured a bark ashore, on her beam
ends, in a sea like those off the Horn. On the beach was a whole parcel
of life-savers firin' off rockets and blue lights. Keepin' the Fourth of
July, I judged they was, for I couldn't see any other reason. The bark
wa'n't more'n a hundred foot from 'em, and if all hands on board didn't
know they was in trouble by that time, then they deserved to drown.
Anyhow, they wa'n't likely to appreciate the celebration. Ho! ho! Well,
when I run afoul of that poster I felt I hadn't ought to let anything
like that get away; so I hunted up the theater--it wa'n't but a little
ways off--and got a front seat for that very afternoon."
"Was it up to the advertising?" asked Pearson.
"WAS it? Hi hum! I wish you'd been there. More 'special I wished some of
the folks from home had been there, for the whole business was supposed
to happen on the Cape, and they'd have realized how ignorant we are
about the place we live in. The hero was a strappin' six-footer, sort of
a combination fisherman and parson, seemed so. He wore ileskins in fair
weather and went around preachin' or defyin' folks that provoked him
and makin' love to the daughter of a long-haired old relic that called
himself an inventor.... Oh, consarn it!"
"What's the matter?"
"Dropped my collar button, as usual.
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