"I say, Delancy, what's this I hear?"
"About what?" said Jack, sauntering along to a seat opposite the Major,
and touching a bell on the little table as he sat down. Jack's face was
flushed, but he talked with unusual slowness and distinctness. "What
have you heard, Major?"
"That you have bought Benham's yacht."
"No, I haven't; but I was turning the thing over in my mind," Jack
replied, with the air of a man declining an appointment in the Cabinet.
"He offers it cheap."
"My dear boy, there is no such thing as a cheap yacht, any more than
there is a cheap elephant."
"It's better to buy than build," Jack insisted. "A man's got to have
some recreation."
"Recreation! Why don't you charter a Fifth Avenue stage and take your
friends on a voyage to the Battery? That'll make 'em sick enough." It
was a misery of the Major's life that, in order to keep in with necessary
friends, he had to accept invitations for cruises on yachts, and pretend
he liked it. Though he had the gout, he vowed he would rather walk to
Newport than go round Point Judith in one of those tipping tubs. He had
tried it, and, as he said afterwards, "The devil of it was that Mrs.
Henderson and Miss Tavish sympathized with me.
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