duck him," said the Princeton man.
But Mrs. Jimmie interfered, saying in a quiet voice, although her hands were trembling:
"Don't do anything to him until we take him back to the house-boat. Remember he is my guest."
At this the German smiled with such insolence and pulled his hat further down on his brow with such a vicious look of satisfaction that I had all I could do to hold myself in. The boats flew back to the house-boat as if on wings.
"You see, miss," he leaned forward and said to me in low tones. "You do not like me. You love your flag. Ah, ha, I revenge myself."
"Just wait till I tell Jimmie," I said.
"Ah, ha, he will do nothing! I play for his concert to-night."
As the boats pulled up to the steps of the house-boat, Jimmie met us with his two friends, who had come during our absence. We had never seen them before.
"What do you think, Jimmie?" stammered Bee, stumbling up the steps in her excitement.
"And Jimmie, he wouldn't take his hat off to the flag!"
"And Jimmie, I wish you had been there, you'd have drowned him!" came from all of us at once.
"What's that?" cried Jimmie in a rage at once, and:
"What's that?" came from the men behind him. "Wouldn't take off his hat to the flag? Who wouldn't?"
"That nasty little German!" cried Miss Wemyss.
We were all out of the boats by that time except the unhappy object of our wrath, whose countenance by this time was working into patterns like a kaleidoscope.
"Mr. Jimmie," he said, coming to the end of the boat with every intention of stepping out, "I apologise to you. I am very sorry."
"Get back in that boat!" thundered Jimmie.
"But, sir! Your concert to-night! I play for you!"
"You go to the devil," said Jimmie. "You'll not put your foot on board this boat again. Off you go! Take him down to Henley!" he ordered the boatman.
"Very well! Very well!" said the German, "I go, but I do not take my hat off to your flag."
"Ah! Don't you?" cried the Princeton man, making a grab for the German's sailor hat with his long arm, just as the boat shot away. He stooped and took it up full of Thames water and flung it thus loaded squarely in the little wretch's face, while the man at the oars dexterously tossed it overboard, where it floated bottom upwards in the river, and the boat shot out toward Henley with the bareheaded and most excited specimen of the human race it was ever our lot to behold.
Then Jimmie introduced his friends. Bee has just looked over this narrative of the pleasantest week we ever spent in England and she says:
"You haven't said a word about the races."
"So I haven't."
But they were there.
CHAPTER II
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
