Sea Urchins | Page 7

a grunt which might mean anything--Mr. Boom took
it for sympathy.
"I called her old maid," he said with gusto; "'you're a fidgety old maid,'
I said. You should ha' seen her look. Do you know what I think, Dick?"
"Not exactly," said Tarrell cautiously.
"I b'leeve she's that savage that she'd take the first man that asked her,"
said the other triumphantly; "she's sitting up there at the door of the
cottage, all by herself."
Tarrell sighed.
"With not a soul to speak to," said Mr. Boom pointedly.
The other kicked at a small crab which was passing, and returned it to
its native element in sections.
"I'll walk up there with you if you're going that way," he said at length.
"No, I'm just having a look round," said Mr. Boom, "but there's nothing
to hinder you going, Dick, if you've a mind to."
"There's no little thing you want, as I'm going there, I s'pose?"
suggested Tarrell. "It's awkward when you go there and say,
'Good-morning,' and the girl says, 'Good-morning,' and then you don't
say any more and she don't say any more. If there was anything you
wanted that I could help her look for, it 'ud make talk easier."
"Well--go for my baccy pouch," said Mr. Boom, after a minute's
thought, "it'll take you a long time to find that."
"Why?" inquired the other.
"'Cos I've got it here," said the unscrupulous Mr. Boom, producing it,
and placidly filling his pipe.
"You might spend--ah--the best part of an hour looking for that."

He turned away with a nod, and Tarrell, after looking about him in a
hesitating fashion to make sure that his movements were not attracting
the attention his conscience told him they deserved, set off in the
hang-dog fashion peculiar to nervous lovers up the road to the cottage.
Kate Boom was sitting at the door as her father had described, and, in
apparent unconsciousness of his approach, did not raise her eyes from
her book. "Good-morning," said Tarrell, in a husky voice.
Miss Boom returned the salutation, and, marking the place in her book
with her forefinger, looked over the hedge on the other side of the road
to the sea beyond.
"Your father has left his pouch behind, and being as I was coming this
way, asked me to call for it," faltered the young man.
Miss Boom turned her head, and, regarding him steadily, noted the
rising colour and the shuffling feet.
"Did he say where he had left it?" she inquired.
"No," said the other.
"Well, my time's too valuable to waste looking for pouches," said Kate,
bending down to her book again, "but if you like to go in and look for it,
you may!"
She moved aside to let him pass, and sat listening with a slight smile as
she heard him moving about the room.
"I can't find it," he said, after a pretended search.
"Better try the kitchen now then," said Miss Boom, without looking up,
"and then the scullery. It might be in the woodshed or even down the
garden. You haven't half looked."
She heard the kitchen door close behind him, and then, taking her book
with her, went upstairs to her room. The conscientious Tarrell, having
duly searched all the above-mentioned places, returned to the parlour

and waited. He waited a quarter of an hour, and then going out by the
front door, stood irresolute.
"I can't find it," he said at length, addressing himself to the bedroom
window.
"No. I was coming down to tell you," said Miss Boom, glancing
sedately at him from over the geraniums. "I remember seeing father
take it out with him this morning."
Tarrell affected a clumsy surprise. "It doesn't matter," he said. "How
nice your geraniums are."
"Yes, they're all right," said Miss Boom briefly.
"I can't think how you keep 'em so nice," said Tarrell.
"Well, don't try," said Miss Boom kindly. "You'd better go back and
tell father about the pouch. Perhaps he's waiting for a smoke all this
time."
"There's no hurry," said the young man; "perhaps he's found it."
"Well, I can't stop to talk," said the girl; "I'm busy reading."
With these heartless words she withdrew into the room, and the
discomfited swain, only too conscious of the sorry figure he cut, went
slowly back to the harbour, to be met by Mr. Boom with a wink of
aggravating and portentous dimensions.
"You've took a long time," he said slyly. "There's nothing like a little
scheming in these things."
"It didn't lead to much," said the discomfited Tarrell.
"Don't be in a hurry, my lad," said the elder man, after listening to his
experiences. "I've been thinking over this little affair for some time
now, an' I think I've got a