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CHAPTER SIX.

AN ACCIDENT.


Dr. DeLancey, sitting under the awning of the after deck of "The
Idlesse," and gazing out upon the sound where Jack Schuyler, Tom Blake
and Kathryn Blair were defying the laws of nature in a thirty foot
knockabout, much to the unspoken anxiety of two fathers and the spoken
fear of three mothers, again voiced this thought on the following
evening.

"The prettiest, sweetest, finest, loveliest child I ever knew, by Jove,"
he declared; then, bowing, "present company, of course, excepted.... Yes,
sir. If you two old ninnies don't force your sons to marry her, I'll take
it into my own hands, damme if I don't, by Jove!"

"But they can't both marry her," protested the widow of Jimmy Blair,
placing her arm about the baby brother that had turned out to be a
sister.

The Doctor waved his hand, loftily.

"A mere detail," he asserted. "As long as one of 'em marries her, that