it was early spring when i had arrived in new york, and the summer heat had begun to wane when i first set eyes on the billowcrest, and its owner, chauncey gale.
on one of those cool mornings that usually come during the first days of august i was taking a stroll up riverside drive. below me lay the blue hudson, and at a little dock just beyond grant’s tomb a vessel was anchored. looking down on her from above it was evident, even to my unprofessional eye, that she was an unusual craft. her hull was painted white like that of a pleasure yacht and its model appeared to have been constructed on some such lines. also, an awning sheltered her decks, suggesting the sumptuous pleasures of the truly rich. but she was much larger than any yacht i had ever seen, and fully bark-rigged—carrying both steam and sail. she was wider, too, in proportion to her length, and her cabins seemed rather curiously disposed. a man laboring up the slope 21took occasion to enlighten me. he had just investigated on his own account.
“great boat, that,” he panted. “cost a million, and belongs to a man named gale. made his money in real estate and built her himself, after his own ideas. he wasn’t a sailor at all, but he’d planned lots of houses and knew what he wanted, and had the money to pay for it. no other boat like her in the world and not apt to be; but she suits him and she goes all right, and that’s all that’s necessary, ain’t it?”
i said that it was, and i presently went down to look at her. i do not now remember that i was prompted by any other motive than to see, if possible, what a man looked like who could afford to disregard the laws and traditions of ship architecture, and build and own a million dollar steamer after his own model, and for his own pleasure. also, i had a natural curiosity to learn something of what sort of vessel would result from these conditions.
as i drew nearer i was still further impressed with her remarkable breadth of beam, suggesting comfort rather than speed, and by the unusual flare and flatness of her hull, reminding me of the model of western steamers built for log jams and shallow water. connecting with the dock was a small gangway, at the top of which stood a foreign-looking 22sailor in uniform. across his cap, in white letters, was the word, “billowcrest.” he regarded me distrustfully as i walked up and down, and one or two suggestions i made, with a view of conveying to him my good opinion of his boat, as well as the impression that i knew a lot about yachts in general, he acknowledged grudgingly and in mixed tongues. i disapproved of him from the start, and as later events showed, with sufficient reason. having looked over the vessel casually i halted at last in front of the gangway.
“i should like to come on board,” i said.
the polyglot dissented.
“no admit. mis’r gale command.”
“is mr. gale himself on board?”
i assumed a manner of severity with a view of convincing him that i was of some importance, and at the same instant ascended the gang-plank, extending my card before me. of course the card meant nothing to him except that i was able to have a card, but i could see that he hesitated and was lost. evidently he had little knowledge of the great american game when i could intimidate him with one card.
he returned presently, and scowlingly led me into a little saloon forward. then he disappeared again and i was left to look at my surroundings. a desk, a fireplace with a gas-log, some chairs suggestive 23of comfort, a stairway, probably leading to the bridge above. the evidences of the real estate man’s genius were becoming apparent. i might have been in the reception hall of any one of a thousand country cottages in the better class suburbs of new york. i had barely made these observations when a door to the right of the stairway opened. in a cottage it would have led to the dining-room, and did so, as i discovered later, on the billowcrest. a tall, solemn-looking man entered, and i rose, half extending my hand, after the manner of the west.
“mr. gale,” i said.
the solemn man waved me aside—somewhat nervously it seemed.
“no—i’m—that is, i’m not mr. gale. i’m only the—his steward,” he explained. “mr. gale is—er—somewhat busy just now and would like to know if your errand is im—that is, i should say, a personal matter. perhaps i—i might answer, you know.”
my heart warmed instantly toward this sober-faced man with thin whitening hair and nervous hesitation of manner. i was about to tell him that i only wanted to go over the yacht, and that he would do admirably when i thrilled with a sudden impulse, or it may have been an inspiration.
“please tell mr. gale,” i said, “that i am sorry 24to disturb him, but that i would really like to see him personally. i will not detain him.”
the solemn man retired hastily, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him. i heard him murmur something within, which was followed by a rather quick, hearty response.
“all right, bill. newspaper man, i guess,—tell him i’m coming!”
the tall man whose name, it seemed, and inappropriately enough, was bill, returned with this announcement. close behind him followed a stout, clear-eyed man of perhaps fifty. a man evidently overflowing with nerve force and energy, appreciative of humor, prompt and keen in his estimate of human nature, and willing to back his judgments with his money. undismayed and merry in misfortune, joyous and magnanimous in prosperity, scrupulously careful of his credit, and picturesquely careless of his speech—in a word, chauncey gale, real estate speculator, self-made capitalist and american citizen.
i did not, of course, realize all of these things on the instant of our meeting, yet i cannot refrain from setting them down now, lest in the reader’s mind there should exist for a moment a misconception of this man to whom i owe all the best that i can ever give.
he came forward and took my hand heartily.
25“set down,” he commanded, “and tell us all about it.”
“mr. gale,” i began, “i have been admiring your yacht from the outside, and i came on board to learn more about her purpose—how you came to build her, what you intend to do with her, her dimensions, and so on.”
i was sparring for an opening, you see, and then he had taken me for a reporter.
“what paper you on?”
i was unprepared for this and it came near being a knockout. i rallied, however, to the truth.
“i’m on no paper, mr. gale; i’m a man with a scheme.”
“good enough! what is it?”
“to go to the south pole.”
we both laughed. there had been no suggestion of annoyance or even brusqueness in mr. gale’s manner, which was as encouraging as possible, and as buoyant. but half unconsciously i had adopted its directness, and perhaps this pleased him.
“say, but that’s a cool proposition,” he commented. “we might get snowed up on that speculation, don’t you think so?”
“well, of course it might be a cold day before we got there, but when we did——”
mr. gale interrupted.
26“look here,” he broke in, “i’m glad you ain’t on a paper, anyway. i’ve not much use for them, to tell the truth. i’ve paid ’em more’n a million dollars for advertising, and when i built this yacht they all turned in and abused me. they got what they thought was a tip from some sea-captain, who said she wouldn’t steer, or float, or anything else, and that i’d never get out of the harbor. well, she floats all right, doesn’t she?”
i looked properly indignant and said that she did.
“i’ve been around the world twice in her,” he continued, “me and my daughter. she isn’t fast, that’s a fact, but she’s fast enough for us, and she suits us first-rate. i don’t know whether she’d do to go to the south pole in or not. i’ll tell you how she’s built, and what i built her for, and you can see for yourself.”
i did not allow myself to consider mr. gale’s manner or remarks as in the slightest degree encouraging to my plans. the fact that he had cut short my attempted explanation rather indicated, i thought, that this part of our interview was closed.
“i built her myself,” he proceeded, “after my own ideas. she’s a good deal on the plan of a house we used to live in and liked, at hillcrest. my daughter grew up in it. hillcrest was my first addition, and the billowcrest is my last. i’m a real-estate man, and all the money i ever made, or 27lost, came and went in laying out additions. i’ve laid out and sold fifty-three, altogether. hillcrest, stonycrest, mudcrest, dingleside, tangleside, jungleside, edgewater, bilgewater, jerkwater and all the other crests and sides and hursts and waters and manors you’ve heard of for the past twenty years. i was the first man that ever used the line, ‘quit paying rent and buy a home,’ and more people have quit paying rent and bought homes from me than from any man that ever took space in a sunday paper. my daughter is a sort of missionary. she makes people good and i sell ’em homes and firesides. or maybe i sell ’em homes first and she makes ’em good afterwards, so they’ll keep up their payments. whichever way it is, we’ve been pretty good partners for about twenty-five years, and when the land and spiritual improvement business got overdone around here i built this boat so we could take comfort in her together, and maybe find some place in the world where people still needed homes and firesides, and missionary work. she’s two hundred and sixty feet long and fifty feet in the beam, twin screw and carries sixteen thousand square feet of calico besides. she’s wide, so she’ll be safe and comfortable, and i built her flat so’s we could take her into shallow water if we wanted to. she’s as stout as a battle-ship and she’s took us around the world twice, as i said. we’ve 28had a bully time in her, too, but so far we’ve found no place in this old world where they’re suffering for homes and firesides or where they ain’t missionaried to death. now, what’s your scheme?”
it seemed the opportune moment. my pulse quickened and stopped as i leaned forward and said:
“it’s to find a new world!”
“at the south pole?”
“at the south pole.”
“what’s the matter with the north?”
“the north pole is a frozen sea—a desolation of ice. at the south pole there is a continent—i believe a warm one.”
“what warmed it?”
“the oblation of the earth, which brings the surface there sufficiently near the great central heat to counteract the otherwise low temperature resulting from the oblique angle of the direct solar rays.”
i had gone over this so often that in my eagerness i suppose i parroted it off like a phonograph. gale was regarding me keenly—mystified but interested.
“look here,” he said. “i believe you’re in earnest. just say that again, please; slow, and without any frills, this time.”
i was ready enough to simplify.
“mr. gale,” i began, “you are aware, perhaps, that when we dig down into the earth we find that it becomes rapidly warmer as we descend, so that a 29heat is presently reached at which life could not exist, and from this it has been argued that the inner earth is a mass of fire surrounded only by an outer crust of some fifty miles in thickness. we also know by observation and experiment that the diameter of the earth between the poles is some twenty-six miles less than it is at any point on the equator. this is known as the earth’s oblation, or, as the school-books have it, the flattening of the poles.”
i paused and gale nodded; apparently these things were not entirely unfamiliar to him. i proceeded with my discourse.
“you will see, therefore, that at each polar axis the earth’s surface is some thirteen miles nearer to this great central heat than at the equator, and this i believe to be sufficient to produce a warmth which prevents the great ice-floes of the arctic sea from solidifying about the north pole; while at the south, where there is a continent into which ice-floes cannot be forced, i am convinced that there will some day be found a warm habitable country about the earth’s axis. whoever finds it will gain immortality, and perhaps wealth beyond his wildest dreams.”
i had warmed to this explanation with something of the old-time enthusiasm, and i could see that gale was listening closely. it may have appealed 30to his sense of humor, or perhaps the very wildness of the speculation attracted him.
“say,” he laughed, as i finished, “the world turning on its axle would help to keep it warm there, too, wouldn’t it?”
i joined in his merriment. the humors of the enterprise were not the least of its attractions.
“but that would be a bully place for a real-estate man,” he reflected. “first on the ground could have it all his own way, couldn’t he? build and own railroads and trolley lines, and lay out the whole country in additions. sunnybank, snowbank, axis hill—look here, why ain’t anybody ever been there before?”
“because nobody has ever been prepared to surmount the almost perpendicular wall that surrounds it, or to cross the frozen zone beyond. the ice-wall is anywhere from one to two thousand feet high. i have a plan for scaling it and for drifting over the frozen belt in a balloon to which, instead of a car, there will be attached a sort of large light boat with runners on it, so that it may also be sailed or drawn on the surface, if necessary. the balloon idea is not, of course, altogether new, except——”
but gale had gone off into another roar of merriment.
“well, if this ain’t the coldest, windiest bluff i ever got up against,” he howled. “think of going 31up in a balloon and falling off of an ice-wall two thousand feet high! oh, lord! what is home without a door-knob!”
“there does appear to be an element of humor in some phases of my proposition,” i admitted, “but i have faith in it, nevertheless, and am quite sincere in my belief of a warm antarctic world.”
“of course you are. if you hadn’t been i wouldn’t ‘a’ let you talk to me for a minute. let’s hear some more about it. do you think this ship would do? when do you want to start?”
“as for the ship,” i hastened to say, “it would almost seem that she had been built for the purpose. with her splendid sailing rig, her coal could be economized, and used only when absolutely necessary. her light draught makes it possible to take her into almost any waters. the shape of her hull and her strength are calculated to withstand an ice-squeeze, and her capacity is such that enough provisions in condensed forms could be stored away in her hold to last for an almost indefinite length of time. as for starting——”
a cloud had passed over gale’s face at the mention of an ice-squeeze, but now he was laughing again.
“condensed food! oh, by the great diamond back, but that will hit bill! that’s his hobby. he’s invented tablets condensed from every kind of 32food under the sun. you saw bill awhile ago. used to be my right-hand man in real estate, and is now my steward, from choice. never had a profitable idea of his own, but honest and faithful as a town clock. what he calls dietetics is his long suit. he don’t try many of his experiments on us, but he does on himself; that’s why he looks like a funeral. oh, but we must have bill along—it’ll suit him to the ground!”
he touched a button at his elbow.
“food tablets might prove a great advantage,” i admitted, “especially if we made an extended trip in the balloon.”
“bill can make ’em for us all right. soup tablets, meat tablets, bread tablets—why, you can put a meat tablet between two bread tablets and have a sandwich, and carry a whole table d’h?te dinner in a pill-box. here, boy, tell mr. sturritt to step up here, if he’s not busy. tell him i’ve got important news for him.”
clearly it was but a huge joke to mr. gale. i was willing to enter into the spirit of it, however. he turned to me as the boy disappeared.
“of course, we can’t expect to find anybody living there.”
“why not? nature never yet left a habitable country unoccupied. we shall undoubtedly find a race of people there—perhaps a very fine one.”
33he regarded me incredulously a moment, and then thumped the desk at his side vigorously.
“that settles it! johnnie’s missionary work’s cut out for her. it’s a great combination, and we can’t lose! balloons, tablets, missionary work, and homes and firesides! a regular four-time winner!”
he was about to touch the bell again when there came a light tap at the door near me, and a woman’s voice said:
“mayn’t i have some of the fun, too, daddy?”
my spirits sank the least bit. the mental image i had formed of miss gale, the missionary, was not altogether pleasing, while her advent was likely to put a speedy end to any thread of hope i may have picked up during my rather hilarious interview with her father. gale, meanwhile, had risen hastily to admit her, and i had involuntarily turned. it is true the voice had been not unmusical, but certainly i was wholly unprepared for the picture in the doorway. tall, lithe and splendid she stood there—the perfect type of america’s ideal womanhood.
gale greeted her eagerly.
“of course you can hear it—i was just going to send for you. johnnie, here’s a young man that’s going to take us to the south pole to convert the heathen there, and provide ’em with homes and firesides. mr. ——,” he glanced at my card, which 34he had kept in his hand all this time—“mr. nicholas chase, my daughter, miss edith gale, sometimes, by her daddy, called johnnie, for short.”
miss gale held out her hand cordially. i took it with no feeling of hesitation that i can now recall. and it seemed to me that i would be willing to go right on holding a hand like that and let the south pole discover itself, or remain lost through all eternity.
“i have been telling mr. chase,” chauncey gale began, when we were seated, “of our missionary-real-estate combine; how i provide outcast humanity with homes and firesides in this world, and how you look out for a home without too much fireside in it in the next; and how all the territory in this world seems to be pretty well covered in our line. now he’s found for us, or is going to find, he says, a new world where we can do business on a big scale. is that correct, mr. chase?”
i looked at miss gale, upon whose face there was an expression, half-aggrieved, half-mystified. for one thing, it was evident that, like myself, she could not be quite certain whether her father was altogether, or only partly, in jest. she beamed graciously on me, however, which was enough.
“why, how fine that is,” she assented. “we have been wishing for some new thing to do, and 35some new where to go, but we never dreamed of a new world. if you can take us to one we will reward you—even to the half of our kingdom.”
“poor trade,” said gale. “whole world for half a kingdom. try again.”
“oh, well, he shall have”—she hesitated, seeking a way out, then in frank confusion—“he shall name his reward, as they do in the story-books.”
i joined in the laugh. but my heart had grown strangely warm, and my pulses were set to a new measure. i had never fully believed in love at first sight till that moment.
“tell us your scheme again, chase,” commanded gale.
the familiar form of his address stimulated me. i felt that i had known this robust man since the beginning of all things.
“wait,” he interrupted, “here comes bill—he must hear it, too. mr. chase, i present you to his royal tablets, mr. william sturritt, caterer extraordinary to the great billowcrest expedition for the discovery and development of the warm antarctic world. bill, old man, your tablets are going to have their innings at last. mr. chase is just going to tell us how to climb a two thousand foot ice-wall in a balloon.”
i shook hands heartily with the thin, solemn man, who made an anxious attempt to smile and seated 36himself rather insecurely on the edge of a chair. then i began as gravely as possible, and reviewed once more my theories and purpose, adding now the brief but important bits of evidence concerning temperatures and currents, supplied by recent explorers. the warm northerly current reported by borchgrevink i dwelt upon, and suggested that by following it a vessel might meet with less formidable obstructions in the way of field ice, and perhaps reach the ice barrier at no great distance from the habitable circle beyond. it even might be possible, i said, to follow this current directly to the interior continent, though this i considered doubtful, believing rather that it would flow out from amid fierce and shifting obstructions that would make navigation impracticable.
i then reviewed my plan for scaling the ice barrier and crossing the frozen strip by the aid of a balloon, to which would be attached the light boat-shaped car before mentioned. this car, i said, might be constructed to hold four, possibly six, men. in it could be stored light instruments for photography, observation, etc. also such furs and clothing as would be needed, and a considerable supply of food in condensed forms.
during this recital i had been interrupted by scarcely a word. once, when i mentioned the ice-wall, gale had put his hands together and murmured 37to himself, “oh, lord, two thousand feet high—now i lay me!” but for the rest of the time he was quite silent and attentive, as were both of the others. miss gale (and it was to her that i talked), edith gale listened without speaking, moveless, her eyes looking straight into mine, but far beyond me, to the land of which i spoke—a land of fancy—the country of my dreams, now becoming hers. gale turned to mr. sturritt as i finished. the meager face of the latter was flushed and animated. credulous, visionary and eager, the dream had become his, too. it seemed to me that there was a quality of tenderness in gale’s voice as he addressed him.
“well, bill,” he said, “what do you think of it? chance of your life, ain’t it? think of provisioning a voyage to the south pole. why, you can fairly wallow in tablets!”
mr. sturritt shifted a bit in his chair.
“i think it the most wond—the most marvelous undertaking of the century,” he said eagerly, “and the most plaus—er—that is, the most logical. for my own part in it, i may say to mr. race—that is, chase, that i have perfected a sort of system of food tab—i should say lozenges, that might, i believe, be found advantageous in supplying the balloon with food—that is—er—i mean the people in the balloon, where space and lightness would be 38considerations. they are, i think i may say without claiming—taking credit, that is, for the entire originality of the idea—more nutritious and—er—more wholesome than any other food lozenge i have seen, besides being less bulk—er—i should say—more compact in form, and not so hard to—to—i mean, in fact quite easy——”
“not so hard to take,” put in gale. “that’s right, bill, they’re not bad at all—i’ve tried ’em. i threw a fit afterwards, but that wasn’t your fault—i didn’t take ’em right.”
“papa insisted on eating all the dessert tablets, because they were pink and flavored with wintergreen, and they made him ill,” commented miss gale, who seemed to waken from her reverie.
“they should be taken—er—used, i mean, according to direc—that is—in proper sequence,” explained mr. sturritt. “white, followed by blue and red, in order to work well—to secure hygienic results, i should say. the white contains the gently stimulating nutriment of meat and bivalve juices, and is—er—the soup course, so to speak. the blue contains the solids required to supply strength, while the pink or rose wafer combines the essence of creams, fruits and nuts—the delicacies, as it were, of food diet. white, blue and red is the proper combi—er—that is—sequence, and i shall soon have other varieties.”
39“i thought they ought to go red, white and blue,” said gale, “like the colors in the flag. but, see here, johnnie, what do you think of mr. chase’s scheme, anyway? ain’t it a bully chance for opening our business on a big scale?”
“please don’t, daddy,” protested miss gale. “mr. chase must have a very unfair opinion of us from what you have told him. he must stay to luncheon, and learn to know us better.”
at this point mr. sturritt rose and excused himself.
“i am not really a missionary, you know,” edith gale continued. “in fact not at all. i have just a little hobby—a very little one—of helping people to better ideals through a truer appreciation of the beautiful in nature.” she said this quite unaffectedly—much as a child would explain a little game of its own. i nodded eagerly and she proceeded.
“it has always seemed to me that the people who see only firewood in trees, weather-signs in skies, and water-supply in rivers, miss a good deal of what is best in this world, and are perhaps not so well prepared for what they find in the next. and sometimes even those who care in a way for the beauties of the earth and sky miss a good deal of them, or care not in the best way. sometimes they cut their trees into queer shapes, or chop away all the pretty tangle of foliage from a river bank, or lay out their 40gardens with a square and compass. i sketch and paint a little, and now and then i try to make people realize the beauty as well as the usefulness of nature, and that it’s a waste of time to do all those artificial things to it. it is quite simple to explain with pictures, you know, like an object lesson, and i show them that star-shaped flower-beds, and bare river banks, and ornamentally trimmed trees do not make as pretty pictures as they would the other way, and then sometimes i go further and say that maybe children, and grown folks, too, would be better and less artificial themselves if they were taught to care less for nature in its unnatural forms, and more as god made it. your dream of an antarctic world and an undiscovered race is very fascinating to me. i, also, have long had a dream of finding such a people, though it is far more likely that i should go to them to learn than to teach.”
chauncey gale had been watching her admiringly while she spoke. as for myself, if there had been one thing needed to complete my conversion, it was this revelation of her gentle doctrines. gale, however, could not be long repressed.
“you’ve no idea how that sort of thing takes with commuters,” he said reverentially. “it’s sold more additions for me than all my advertising put together.”
“oh, daddy, how can you!”
41“look at that air of innocence,” said gale, “it would deceive the oldest man living. you know very well, johnnie, that the bilgewater lots would never have moved in the world if you hadn’t gone out there and got those people all crazy on art values. why, the art value of every lot in bilgewater doubled in ten days, and they went off like chromos at a picture auction.”
“papa!” said miss gale severely, “i went to bridgewater, or bilgewater, as you persist in calling it, and showed the people my pictures out there, because i was invited to do so, and because i saw by their lawns and gardens that they needed me. i had no thought of the material value and sale of your old lots, i can assure you, and i don’t believe my going made a particle of difference. if i had thought it possible, i shouldn’t have gone.”
it was evident that gale’s fond pride in his daughter grew with every sentence.
“she’d deceive anybody in the world, except her old daddy,” he persisted. “get your pictures, johnnie, and let mr. chase see them.”
i hastened to assure miss gale that i should consider it a privilege to look at her work, and she rose, leaving me with her father, whose eyes followed her proudly. for myself, i was in a decidedly miscellaneous condition, mentally. i could not permit myself even to hope that gale really intended to undertake 42the expedition i had proposed. yet there had been something about it all that suggested a sincere interest in my plans, in spite of the fact of his rather boisterous and perhaps undue tendency to levity. it seemed to me that his daughter, and his old-time associate, sturritt, had taken him seriously, and they must know his moods better than i. at most i would not allow myself to do more than hope. i had waited so long—i could restrain the frenzy of joy in me a little longer. one thing was assured. i was to sit at luncheon with edith gale, and even should there be no voyage to the south, i might hope to see her again, when from time to time i could make the excuse of coming to her father with new sources of amusement. i reflected that i would invent the most absurd propositions that human ingenuity could devise, for chauncey gale to play with, if he only would let his daughter take part in the merry pastime.
gale, meantime, had turned to me, and was about to speak when miss gale entered. she was accompanied by a stout, resolute-looking colored woman, bearing a large portfolio.
“put it right down on the rug, zar, against the chair, so.”
miss gale herself adjusted the heavy book, then seated herself comfortably on the floor beside it. the servant withdrew. gale slid over to a low 43stool, and, half unconsciously, i slipped from my chair to a position on the floor between them. we were like a group of children around a toy book.
the cover of the portfolio was turned back and the first picture, a bit of landscape in water color, was shown. i had no great technical knowledge of art, but i could see at a glance that miss gale’s work was of unusual quality. the admiration, at first expressed in words, soon became the silence of unquestioned tribute. yet i was not surprised that edith gale should do this masterly work. what did surprise me was the genuine appreciation of her father, as shown by his occasional comment. evidently the daughter’s ability had not been wholly due to the dead mother. at the end of the portfolio there was a series of illustrations for an old yorkshire ballad.
“daddy and i always sing this when folks will let us,” announced miss gale, with an affected diffidence that made her all the more beautiful, i thought.
“you can’t get away now till after lunch, chase,” said gale; “you’ve got to stand it.”
edith gale had set the first of the series up before us, and sang the opening lines of the ballad in a voice that might have come from the middle strings of a harp. then, at the refrain, there joined in a deep, rich resonance that i could hardly realize proceeded 44from her father. i came in at the end of the second stanza—feebly at first, but gaining in courage until i sang with volume enough to have spoiled everything had i not been more fortunate than usual and kept to the right key.
“well,” said gale, “what do you think? do you think those pictures and that singing of hers will convert the heathen?”
i looked at the wonderful girl, who was laughing and closing the portfolio.
“they would convert me,” i said fervently, “to anything.”
gale seemed to enjoy this enthusiasm.
“people mostly like us when they know us, eh, johnnie?”
but miss gale was retiring with the portfolio. he turned to me.
“that’s a great girl,” he said. “the only piece of property but one that i never wanted to part with. the other one was her mother. johnnie came just in time to take her place, and i don’t know what i’d’ a’ done if she hadn’t. being a mother to her kept me busy, and she’s been mother and father and whole family to me. she’s kept me going straight for about twenty-five years now, and is about the finest south-slope blue-grass addition that the lord ever helped lay out. and she cares more for her old daddy than for anybody else in the world. 45her old daddy and her pictures. she never saw a young man that she cared to look at twice, unless he could do something, and then it was for his talents, and not for him. when they fall in love with her she generally gets tired of their paintings, or their music, or whatever it is, and they go away. they all seem to do it, though. you’d be in love with her yourself in a week, if you lingered about this ship. it’s in the air, and everybody gets it. i wouldn’t say much about it, though, if it was me. if we should go to the south pole, you’d want to stay with the expedition, and after we got out to sea you’d have some trouble getting ashore again in case you didn’t find the ship comfortable. there’s another young man that comes here. he’s got a scheme for——”
but miss gale re-entered at that moment. she had made some slight changes in her toilet, and was more entrancing than ever. her father had been right, i thought, only he had named too long a period. he had said “in a week.” his prophecy was already fulfilled.
“i say, johnnie,” greeted gale, “why wouldn’t our wireless telegraphy scheme go well with this expedition, especially with the balloon part? how about that, chase? would it fit in?”
“perfectly, but marconi seems to have it all in his own hands, as yet.”
46“not by a jug-full! johnnie’s got a young man, i was just going to mention him when she came in, a sort of portigee——”
“protégé papa! though he’s not that, either. he’s——”
“oh, well, protyshay, then. anyway, he’s got a system that beats macarony’s to death. i call this chap macarony, too, because he’s italian, and his name is a good deal the same.”
“his name is ferratoni, papa, and the other isn’t macaroni, either, but marconi. papa never calls anything by its right name, if he can help it,” she apologized. “he gets into dreadful trouble sometimes, too, and i’m glad of it. he should be more particular.”
“all right, then, it’s ferry—ferry what? how is it again, johnnie?”
“fer-ra-toni.”
“now we’ve got it. oh, well, let’s compromise and call him tony, for short. well, tony’s got a system that does all that macarony’s does, and goes it one better. obstructions in the way don’t seem to make much difference, and you can use it with a telephone attachment instead of a—a what do you call it—a knocker?”
“a sounder, daddy.”
“a sounder, that’s it, instead of a sounder. we tried it here the other day, and could talk to him 47over in the tract building as well as if we’d been connected with the central office. he’s perfecting it now for long distance, and we might take him right along with us, and let him experiment between the balloon and the ship. how’s that?”
“it would complete our plans perfectly,” i agreed, “if his system of communication prove successful. but do you think he would care to go on such a voyage?”
gale looked at his daughter.
“do you think he would go, johnnie?” he asked, and i thought there was a suggestion of teasing in his voice. also, it seemed to me that there was a little wave of confusion in miss gale’s face, though the slight added color there may have been due to other causes.
“i—why, i think he might——” she began hesitatingly. “i think he would consider it an opportunity. he is deeply interested in what he calls chorded vibrations. wireless telegraphy, or telephoning, is like that, you know, but mr. ferratoni goes much farther. he attributes everything to vibrations. he analyzes my poor little hobby until there’s nothing left of it. he may be here to luncheon to-day, and you can talk with him,” she added, and i thought the blush deepened.
assuredly he would come to luncheon, and of a certainty he would go to the south pole, or anywhere 48that edith gale went, and would let him go. it was too late now, however, for me to raise objections. my only comfort lay in the memory of her father’s assurance that it was in their talents, and not in her protégés themselves, that his daughter was interested.
still, i argued miserably, there must some day come a time—i was sure she had blushed——
a cabin boy entered bearing a tray on which there was a card. he presented it to miss gale.
“mr. ferratoni,” she said, glancing at it, and an instant later i saw in the doorway a slender figure, surmounted by a beautiful beardless face—the face of southern italy—of a poet.
my heart sank, but i greeted him cordially, for i could not withstand the beauty of his face and the magnetism of his glance. it seemed to me that it was a foregone conclusion, so far as miss gale was concerned, and then i suddenly realized that the south pole without edith gale would not be worth looking for. even a whole warm antarctic continent would be a desolation more bleak than people had ever believed it. yet i would find it for her if i could—and then my reward—she had said i should name it—it had been but a jest, of course——
i realized that miss gale was speaking.
“we were just talking of you, mr. ferratoni. we have a plan which we think will interest you. mr. chase will talk to us about it during luncheon.”
