THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
CHAPTER I
Two men sat by the sea waves.
"Well, I know I'm not handsome," said one gloomily. He was poking holes
in the sand with a discontented cane.
The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with
perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right.
Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line.
"To be sure you are not," he cried vehemently.
"You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must
assure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of
white wall paper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like
a little wooden plate. And your figure--heavens!"
For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near
their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.
Finally the first man spoke.
"Well," said he, defiantly, "what of it?"
"What of it?" exploded the other. "Why, it means that you'd look like
blazes in a bathing-suit."
They were again silent. The freckled man seemed ashamed. His tall
companion glowered at the scenery.
"I am decided," said the freckled man suddenly. He got boldly up from the
sand and strode away. The tall man followed, walking sarcastically and
glaring down at the round, resolute figure before him.
A bath-clerk was looking at the world with superior eyes through a hole
in a board. To him the freckled man made application, waving his hands
over his person in illustration of a snug fit. The bath-clerk thought
profoundly. Eventually, he handed out a blue bundle with an air of
having phenomenally solved the freckled man's dimensions.
The latter resumed his resolute stride.
"See here," said the tall man, following him, "I bet you've got a
regular toga, you know. That fellow couldn't tell--"
"Yes, he could," interrupted the freckled man, "I saw correct
mathematics in his eyes."
"Well, supposin' he has missed your size. Supposin'--"
"Tom," again interrupted the other, "produce your proud clothes and
we'll go in."
The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden
boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.
At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too-small cell, and he turned
round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his
bathing-dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered
bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was
silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.
Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He
began to clamor at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.
"Tom," called he, "Tom--"
A voice of wrath, muffled by cloth, came through the walls. "You go t'
blazes!"
The freckled man began to groan, taking the occupants of the entire row
of coops into his confidence.
"Stop your noise," angrily cried the tall man from his hidden den. "You
rented the bathing-suit, didn't you? Then--"
"It ain't a bathing-suit," shouted the freckled man at the boards. "It's
an auditorium, a ballroom, or something. It isn't a bathing-suit."
The tall man came out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He
walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping
in front of his friend's door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles.
"Come out of there, y' ol' fool," said he, in an enraged whisper. "It's
only your accursed vanity. Wear it anyhow. What difference does it make?
I never saw such a vain ol' idiot!"
As he was storming the door opened, and his friend confronted him. The
tall man's legs gave way, and he fell against the opposite door.
The freckled man regarded him sternly.
"You're an ass," he said.
His back curved in scorn. He walked majestically down the alley. There
was pride in the way his chubby feet patted the boards. The tall man
followed, weakly, his eyes riveted upon the figure ahead.
As a disguise the freckled man had adopted the stomach of importance. He
moved with an air of some sort of procession, across a board walk, down
some steps, and out upon the sand.
There was a pug dog and three old women on a bench, a man and a maid
with a book and a parasol, a seagull drifting high in the wind, and a
distant, tremendous meeting of sea and sky. Down on the wet sand stood a
girl being wooed by the breakers.
The freckled man moved with stately tread along the beach. The tall man,
numb with amazement, came in the rear. They neared the girl.
Suddenly the tall man was seized with convulsions. He laughed, and the
girl turned her head.
She perceived the freckled man in the bathing-suit. An expression of
wonderment overspread her charming face. It changed in a moment to a
pearly smile.
This smile seemed to smite the freckled man. He obviously tried to swell
and fit his suit. Then he turned a shrivelling glance upon his
companion, and fled up the beach. The tall man ran after him, pursuing
with mocking cries that tingled his flesh like stings of insects. He
seemed to be trying to lead the way out of the world. But at last he
stopped and faced about.
"Tom Sharp," said he, between his clenched teeth, "you are an
unutterable wretch! I could grind your bones under my heel."
The tall man was in a trance, with glazed eyes fixed on the bathing-
dress. He seemed to be murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! Oh, good Lord! I never
saw such a suit!"
The freckled man made the gesture of an assassin.
"Tom Sharp, you--"
The other was still murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! I never saw such a suit!
I never--"
The freckled man ran down into the sea.
