The Cruise of the Jasper B. | Page 9

was concluding his purchase--Mr. Goldberg having phoned Cleggett's bankers--he was surprised to discover that he was buying about half an acre of Long Island real estate along with her. For that matter he had thought it a little odd in the first place when he had been directed to a real estate agent as the owner of the craft. But as he knew very little about business, and nothing at all about ships, he assumed that perhaps it was quite the usual thing for real estate dealers to buy and sell ships abutting on the coast of Long Island.
"I had only intended to buy the vessel," said Cleggett. "I don't know that I'll be able to use the land."
Mr. Goldberg looked at Cleggett with a slight start, as if he were not sure that he had heard aright, and opened his mouth as if to say something. But nothing came of it--not just then, at least. When the last signature had been written, and Clegget's check had been folded by Mr. Goldberg's plump, bejeweled fingers and put into Mr. Goldberg's pocketbook, Mr. Goldberg remarked:
"You say you can't use the ship?"
"No; the land. I'm surprised to find that the land goes with the ship."
"Why, it doesn't," said Mr. Goldberg. "It's the ship that goes with the land. She was on the land when I bought the plot, and I just left her there. Nobody's paid any attention to her for years."
The words "on the land" grated on Cleggett.
"You mean on the water, don't you?"
"In the mud, then," suggested Mr. Goldberg.
"But she'll sail all right," said Cleggett.
"I suppose if she was decorated up with sails and things she'd sail. Figuring on sailing her anywhere in particular?"
"Subtly irritated, Cleggett answered: "Oh, no, no! Not anywhere in particular!"
"Going to live on her this summer?--Outdoor sleeping room, and all that?"
"I'm thinking of it."
"You could turn her into a house boat easy enough. I had a friend who turned an old barge like that into a house boat and had a lot of fun with her."
"Barge?" Cleggett rose and buttoned his coat; the conversation was somehow growing more and more distasteful to him. "You wouldn't call the Jasper B. a BARGE, would you?"
"Well, you wouldn't call her a YACHT, would you?" said Mr. Goldberg.
"Perhaps not," admitted Cleggett, "perhaps not. She's more like a bark than a yacht."
"A bark? I dunno. Always thought a bark was bigger. A scow's more her size, ain't it?"
"Scow?" Cleggett frowned. The Jasper B. a scow! "You mean a schooner, don't you?"
"Schooner?" Mr. Goldberg grinned good-naturedly at his departing customer. "A kind of a schooner-scow, huh?"
"No, sir, a schooner!" said Cleggett, reddening, and turning in the doorway. "Understand me, Mr. Goldberg, a schooner, sir! A schooner!"
And standing with a frown on his face until every vestige of the smile had died from Mr. Goldberg's lips, Cleggett repeated once more: "A schooner, Mr. Goldberg!"
"Yes, sir--there's no doubt of it--a schooner, Mr. Cleggett," said Mr. Goldberg, turning pale and backing away from the door.
The ordinary man inspects a house or a horse first and buys it, or fails to buy it, afterward; but genius scorns conventions; Cleggett was not an ordinary man; he often moved straight towards his object by inspiration; great poets and great adventurers share this faculty; Cleggett paid for the Jasper B. first and went back to inspect his purchase later.
The vessel lay about two miles from the center of Fairport. He could get within half a mile of it by trolley. Nevertheless, when he reached the Jasper B. again after leaving Mr. Goldberg it was getting along towards dusk.
He first entered the cabin. It was of a good size and divided into several compartments. But it was in a state of dilapidation and littered with a jumble of odds and ends which looked like the ruins of a barroom. As he turned to ascend to the deck again, after possibly five minutes, intending to take a look at the forecastle next, he heard the sound of a motor.
Looking out of the cabin he saw a taxicab approaching the boat from the direction of Fairport. It was a large machine, but it was overloaded with seven or eight men. It stopped within twenty yards of the vessel, and two men got out, one of them evidently a person who imposed some sort of leadership on the rest of the party. This was a tall fellow, with a slouching gait and round shoulders. And yet, to judge from his movements, he was both quick and powerful. The other was a short, stout man with a commonplace, broad red face and flaxen hair. The two stood for a moment in colloquy in the road that led from Fairport proper to the bayside, passing near the Jasper B., and Cleggett heard the shorter of