After twelve years of ferocious labor, with no vacations to speak of, James’s mind took a turn for the worse.  Physically he was as sound as a bell, though of a lath-like thinness; but an effervescing in his blood lured his mind away from the study of lasts and accounts and Parisian models and sent it careering, like Satan, up and down the earth.  Romance, which had been drugged during the transition from youth to manhood, awoke and coaxed for its rights, and whispered temptingly in an ear not yet dulled to its voice.  Freedom, open spaces, laughter, the fresh sweep of the wind, the high bucaneering piracy of life and joy—­these things beglamoured his senses.

So one day he locked his desk with a final click.  The business was in good shape.  It is but justice to say that if it had not been, Romance had dangled her luring wisp o’ light in vain.  Several of his new schemes had worked out well, his subordinates were of one mind with him, trade was flourishing.  He felt he could afford a little spin.

Jimsy’s radiating fancies focussed themselves, at last, on the vision of a trig little sail-boat, “a jug of wine, a loaf of bread” in the cabin, with possibly the book of verses underneath the bow, or more suitably, in the shadow of the sail; and Aleck Van Camp and himself astir in the rigging or plunging together from the gunwale for an early swim.  “And before I get off, I’ll hear a singer that can sing,” he declared.

He telegraphed Aleck, who was by this time running down the eyelid of the squid, to meet him at his club in New York.  Then he made short work with the family.  Experience had taught him that an attack from ambush was most successful.

“Look here, Edith,”—­this was at the breakfast-table the very morning of his departure.  Edith was sixteen, the tallest girl in the academy, almost ready for college and reckoned quite a queen in her world—­“You be good and do my chores for me while I’m away, and I’ll bring you home a duke.  Take care of mother’s bronchitis, and keep the house straight.  I’m going on a cruise.”

“All right, Jim”—­Edith could always be counted on to catch the ball—­“go ahead and have a bully time and don’t drown yourself.  I’ll drive the team straight to water, mother and dad and the whole outfit, trust me!”

Considering the occasion and the correctness of the sentiments, Jim forbore, for once, from making the daily suggestion that she chasten her language.  By the time the family appeared, Jim had laid out a rigid course of action for Miss Edith, who rose to the occasion like a soldier.

“Mother’ll miss you, of course, but Jack and Harold”—­two of Edith’s admirers—­“Jack and Harold can come around every day—­stout arm to lean upon, that sort of thing.  You know mother can’t be a bit jolly without plenty of men about, and since Sue became engaged she really doesn’t count.  The boys will think they are running things, of course, but they’ll see my iron hand in the velvet glove—­you can throw a blue chip on that, Jimsy.  And don’t kiss me, Jim, for Dorothy Snell and I vowed, when we wished each other’s rings on—­Oh, well, brothers don’t count.”