JUST SAILORS.

Betty, having made an excellent breakfast, thank you, slipped from her chair and sidled round the table to me.  Her father’s guests are, naturally and without exception, Betty’s slaves, to do with as she deems best.  To her they are known, regardless of age, either by their Christian names or as “Mr. —­er.”  I had enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance for five years, but was still included in the second category.

Betty has an appealing eye, freckles, and most fascinating red-gold hair, and on the morning of which I write, after preparing the attack with the first, she gently massaged my face with the second and third, the while insinuating into my own a small hand not innocent of marmalade.  Betty is seven or thereabouts.  “Mr. —­er,” she said, “what shall we be to-day?”

“Let us,” I replied hastily, “pretend to be not quite at our best this morning, and have a quiet time in the deck-chairs on the lawn.”  Betty very naturally paid no regard whatever to this cowardly suggestion.

“I’m not quite sure,” she said, “if we will be pirates or soldiers or just sailors.  What do you think?”

Pirates sounded rather strenuous for so hot a day.  Soldiers, I felt sure, involved my becoming a German prisoner and parading the garden paths with my arms up, crying “Kamerad!” while Betty, gun in hand, shepherded and prodded me from behind.  Just sailors, on the other hand, smacked of gentle sculling exercise in the dinghy on the lake, so I said, “Let’s be just sailors.”

But a sailor’s life, as interpreted by Betty, is no rest cure.  On land it includes an exaggerated rolling gait—­itself somewhat fatiguing—­and intervals of active participation in that most exacting dance, the hornpipe, to one’s own whistling accompaniment.  At odd moments, also, it appears that the best sailors double briskly to such melodies as “Tipperary” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”

It was only when we arrived by the lake-side that Betty observed my gumboots; instantly a return to the house in search of Daddy’s nautical footgear was necessitated.  This, though generous in dimensions, was finally induced to remain in position on Betty’s small feet, her own boots being, of course, retained.

The dinghy was launched and, after a little preliminary wading in the gum-boots, the crew embarked.  Betty’s future profession will, I am sure, be that of quick-change artist.  In less than ten minutes she had risen from cabin-boy to skipper, via ordinary seaman, A.B., bo’sun and various grades of mate.  My rank, which had at the outset been that of admiral, as speedily declined, until I was merely the donkey-engine greaser, whose duties appeared to include that of helmsman (Betty is not yet an adept with two sculls).