Tales from Bohemia | Page 5

would turn back and inquire at every hotel near the beach until he should obtain news of her.
He had reached Pennsylvania Avenue when he was attracted by the white tents that here dotted the wide beach. He went down the high flight of steps from the boardwalk to rest awhile in the shade of one of the tents.
Although it was not yet 11 o'clock, several people in bathing suits were making for the sea. A little goat wagon with children aboard was passing the tents, and after it came the cart of the "hokey-pokey" peddler, drawn by a donkey that wore without complaint a decorated straw bathing hat. Morrow, looking at the feet of the donkey, saw in the sand something that shone in the sunlight. He picked it up and found that it was a gold bracelet studded with diamonds.
He questioned every near-by person without finding the owner. He therefore put the bracelet in his pocket, intending to advertise it. Then he resumed his stroll up the boardwalk. He went past the lighthouse and turned back.
He had reached the Tennessee Avenue pier without having found the loveliest girl in the world. His eye caught a small card that had just been tacked up at the pier entrance. Approaching it he read:
"Lost--On the beach between Virginia and South Carolina Avenues, a gold bracelet with seven diamonds. A liberal reward will be paid for its recovery at the ---- Hotel."
The hotel named was the one at which Morrow was staying. He hurried thither.
"Who lost the diamond bracelet?" he asked the clerk.
"That young lady standing near the elevator. Miss Hunt, I think her name is," said the clerk consulting the register. "Yes, that's it, she only arrived last night."
Morrow saw standing near the elevator door, a lithe, well-rounded girl with brown hair and great gray eyes that were fixed on him. She was in the regulation summer-girl attire--blue Eton suit, pink shirtwaist, sailor hat, and russet shoes. He hastened to her.
"Miss Hunt, I have the honour to return your bracelet."
She opened her lips and eyes with pleasurable surprise and reached somewhat eagerly for the piece of jewelry.
"Thank you ever so much. I took a walk on the beach just after breakfast and dropped it somewhere. It's too large."
"I picked it up near Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a curious coincidence that it should be found by some one stopping at the same hotel. But, pardon me, you're going away without mentioning the reward."
She looked at him with some surprise, until she discovered that he was jesting. Then she smiled a smile that gave Morrow quite a pleasant thrill, and said, with some tenderness of tone:
"Let the reward be what you please."
"And that will be to do what you shall please to have me do."
"Ah, that's nice. Then I accept your services at once. I am quite alone here; haven't any acquaintances in the hotel. I want to go bathing and I'm rather timid about going alone, although I'd made up my mind to do so and was just going up after my bathing suit."
"Then I am to have the happiness of escorting you into the surf."
They went bathing together not far from where he had found the bracelet. He discovered that she could swim as well as he; also that in her dark blue bathing costume, with sailor collar and narrow white braid, she was a most shapely person.
She laughed frequently while they were breasting the breakers; and afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the boardwalk, she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness in off-hand persiflage.
He took her into the tent behind the observation wheel to see the Egyptian exhibition, and she was good enough to laugh at his jokes about the mummies, although the mummies did not seem to interest her. Further down the boardwalk they stopped at the Japanese exhibition, and on the way out he caught himself saying that if it were possible, he would take great pleasure in hauling her in a jinrikisha.
"I'll remember that promise and make you push me in a wheel-chair," she answered.
When they were back at the hotel, she turned suddenly and said:
"By the way, what's your name? Mine's Clara Hunt."
He told her, and while she went up the elevator with her bathing suit, he arranged with the head waiter to have himself seated at her table.
He learned from the clerk that she had arrived alone with a letter of introduction from a former guest of the house, and intended to stay at least a fortnight.
At luncheon he proposed that they should take a sail in the afternoon. She said, with a smile:
"As it is you who invites me, I'll give up my nap and go."
They rode in a 'bus to the Inlet, and after spending half an hour drinking