Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/179

Rh Larkin did not seem disposed to be curious. He had thoughts of his own.

"If she's anything like this one," he said, "she's a peach. Furniss, Peggy Furniss! The doc's wife called her Peggy. Some nyme, and some girl! Smart as a steel trap. Twig the w'y she drove that Lizzie through the sand?"

Half an hour later, as the three of them were floating feebly but luxuriantly in the velvety-warm mineral water of the big plunge. Stone asked Larkin how he felt.

"Prime-oh! I never knew water was 'arf so huseful. I'm soakin' it in like a sponge. It's a fair treat this. I bet myself it was all orf wiv the three of hus the larst time we keeled hover. Did you see those bloomin' birds waitin' to dig their beaks hinter us? I was too dead to move, but I expected hevery minnit to 'ave one of 'em start to pecking at me. S'y, oo's this Mary Leslie?

"I can tell you more about her after I've talked with Miss Furniss," answered Stone.

"Ho!" said Larkin, and his tone was perceptibly an injured one. "Privut conversation, w'ot?"

"You're jealous," teased Stone, and Larkin made a face at him, while Harvey guffawed. The doctor came to the plunge before they got out.

"I'll show you where you can turn in for a nap," he said. "Your friend won't have to lose his arm, after all. He'll be laid up for a few days with his arm in a sling. An hour or so more would have told a different story. Anything you want sent down to