Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/320

 shape in the tidy little craft, which was perhaps the best beloved of his cronies. He unscrewed the revolving seat, which he had ingeniously made out of the skeleton top of an old music-stool. "That's so that I can have the game handy if they fly the wrong way," he would explain; adding, confidentially, "Game are so flighty."

In the stern of the "yacht" was a snug little locker, where he stowed away his cartridges and his tobacco cuddy, and where a brandy flask and a box of crackers lay in wait against possible fogs. Here was also a small tin box which was usually well-stocked with checkerberry lozenges; his bonbonnière he called it, with a grand flourish when he offered it to lady passengers. The "yacht" was too small for the accommodation of more than one passenger, but when Uncle Bobby was socially inclined he would organize a little fleet, and with his own boat as flag-ship, would escort a picked party from the boarding-house up the creek; or, if the day was exceptionally calm, they would put boldly out to sea and make for Great Isle, a couple of miles to the northward. No one else could get up such a party at Pleasant Point, for no one else could wheedle the fishermen into cleaning up their boats and letting them out. It was a treat to see Uncle Bobby deal with the cantankerous owner of a jolly little "cat." He would saunter up to the water's edge, just as the man was trying to think of a new "cuss-word"