Jim rowed a little distance away from the landing; then let his boat drift, leaning on the oars. On board an engine-room bell clanged. The green water was suddenly thrashed to foam as the Pettasantuck, throbbing and rattling, backed away from the wharf. All at once Jim stood up and began to signal with extended arms.
"He’s semaphoring," said Garth. "Oh, I do wish he wouldn’t do it so fast! Oh, wait!" But Jim and the little boat were now a fading blur in the fog. "All I got was ‘Good-bye,’" said Garth, "but there was something else."
Very faintly they heard the bell of the unseen lighthouse tolling steadily, remotely, through the thick air.
"You ought to know semaphore, Joan," Garth said after a time. "It’s awfully useful, and it’s fun to do. Sometimes battleships come in—that is, they used to before we went into the war—and it’s exciting to know what they say. I can’t tell what they’re talking about,—they go much too fast,—but Fogger can. He knows all the light-signals, and those wiggly ‘blinkies’ that go just like flashes of lightning. But I’ll show you how the semaphore alphabet goes, only I never can remember which is M and which is S. You stick your arms out dif-
