Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/335

Rh "I always did say you was a man of intelligence, but, Mac, will you promise, when you're through we'll sail back where we can see some real human asphalt once more, where Longacre Square splits old Broadway and Seventh, and the pianos are banging out the latest song-hits on the Alley—say, won't you, Mac?"

"If you're a good little girl and don't make any fuss."

"And say, Mac, no more rough-stuff. I ask you like a pal. These guys are white folks, and I like that little ongenoo.

"Honest-to-Gawd," she finished in a wail of homesickness and foreboding, "I wish you'd beat it now. That gold won't do no one no good."

"No more of that, Carlotta, or I'll lock iron bracelets on you, and throw you in the percolater of that volcano up there."

She looked up in fright, not so much at the threat as at what she saw.

"Look there, Mac, it's smoking now."

"Sure! You'd better be good."

"But it's smoking, I tell you. We've gotta get away."

"Oh, it does that all the time."

"It wasn't when we landed."

But the sun was shining brightly, and the mountain was as blue, the woods as green, as ever they had been, so the trousered four fell to playing cards, while she of the petticoat like a red-lugger sail leaned on the younger man's shoulder, indicating from time to time the proper play, to his growing irritation.

And all the while, up and down, up and down, ceaselessly