Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/36

Rh down to the ferry with me; so I told him I didn't live in any house at all.

"Why, where do you live?" he exclaimed, stopping short.

"I live in a boat," said I.

"A boat! A sort of 'Rob Roy' arrangement, I suppose? Well, I would not have thought that of you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her people?"

"She has done nothing of the kind," I answered. "She lives with me, and she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is not a canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, commodious canal-boat."

Waterford turned around and looked at me.

"Are you a deck-hand?" he asked.

"Deck-grandmother!" I exclaimed.

"Well, you needn't get mad about it," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but I couldn't see what else you could be on a canal-boat. I don't suppose, for instance, that you're captain."

"But I am," said I.

"Look here!" said Waterford; "this is coming it rather strong, isn't it?"

As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about it—told him how we had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it up as a house, and how we lived so cosily in it, and had called it Rudder Grange, and how we had taken a boarder.

"Well!" said he, "this is certainly surprising. I'm coming out to see you some day. It will be better than going to Barnum's."

I told him—it is the way of society—that we would be glad to see him, and we parted. Waterford never did come to see us, and I merely mention this