“Now sneeze and you’ll get the rest of it,” says I.

“Caloosahatchee.  There!” says she.  “What a name to give a river!  But isn’t it wonderful down here, Torchy?”

“Perfectly swell, so far as the scenery goes,” says I.

Course, it’s a good deal like this 79-cent pastel art stuff you see in the Sixth Avenue department stores.  The water looks like it had been laid on by Bohemian glass blowers who didn’t care how many colors they used.  The little islands near by, with clumps of feather-duster palms stickin’ up from ’em, was a bit stagey and artificial.  The far-off shores was too vivid a green to be true, and the high white clouds was the impossible kind that Maxfield Parrish puts on magazine covers.  And, with that dazzlin’ sun blazin’ overhead it all made your eyes blink.

Even the birds don’t seem real.  Not far from us was a row of these here pelicans—­foolish things with bills a yard long and so heavy they have to rest ’em on their necks.  They’re all strung out along the edge of the channel, havin’ a fish gorge.  And, believe me, when a pelican goes fishin’ he don’t make any false moves.  He’ll sit there squintin’ solemn at the water as if he was sayin’ his prayers, then all of a sudden he’ll make a jab with that face extension of his, and when he pulls it out and tosses it up you can bet your last jitney he’s added something substantial to the larder.  One gulp and it’s all over.  I watched one old bird tuck away about ten fish in as many minutes.

“Gee!” says I.  “Every day is Friday with him.  Or maybe he’s got a contract to supply Fulton Market.”

The entertainin’ part of the performance, though, was when the bunch took it into their heads to move on, and started to fly.  They’ve got little short legs and wide feet that they flop back and forth foolish, like they was tryin’ to kick themselves out of the water.  They make a getaway about as graceful as a cow tryin’ the fox trot.  But say, once they get goin’, with them big wings planed against the breeze, they can do the soar act something grand.  And dive!  One of ’em doin’ a hundred-foot straight down plunge has got Annette lookin’ like a plumber fallin’ off a roof backwards.

No, there wasn’t any gloom around our side of the yacht, though I’ll admit it don’t take much of a program to keep me amused while Vee has the next orchestra chair to mine.  We took no notice of anybody’s grouch, and whether or not there was any pirate gold in the neighborhood was a question we didn’t waste thought on.  We knew there wouldn’t be anything in it for us, even if there was.

When the word was passed around that anybody that wanted to might get out and fish, we was the first to volunteer.  Seems this had been the scheme right along—­that our party was to do more or less fishin’, so as to give any natives that might be hangin’ around the proper idea of why we was there.