The green and red of the life-saver's embroidered badge, the crossed flags of the expert signaler, the white plow of the husbandman, they enlivened the gloom a wee bit, winking up at the safety lamp hooked to his hat-band, as he bent over the illumined reptile.
But they did not challenge it as did the flash of an apricot sweater, blood-red in the ruby lamplight, of a black and yellow cap, several yellow and black caps, suddenly--eagerly--thrust near.
"He's big--big for a garter, isn't he, Buddy?" remarked a voice that did not come from the ranks of Togetherers, of Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, excitedly scrutinizing Stud's novel armlet.
Neither--neither was it the voice of the nickum, so much Pemrose knew, as she edged coldly a little away,--a little nearer to the dim and sighing lake-edge.
Yet he was among them, those gaudy big boys, whose flare of color merely striped the cave-dusk, like the dingy markings upon the snake's squirming back.
He actually had his armful of mayflowers, too, the nickum, not the snake; _passë_ mayflowers, with the tan of decay on them, was nursing them carefully, as if they were part of a long lost heritage into which he had lately come--as if he were afraid to lay them down lest some alien should snatch them from him.
"He doesn't look like a 'chuff'--a boor. He looks like a really nice college boy, one with a hazing imp in his eye though, lur-rking in that little star--almost a squint; so--so like Una's," thought the inventor's daughter, familiar with the student brand of boy. "Yet how could he be so uncivil to us, really--actually--snub us, after all he did, too? Goodness! wouldn't I like to get a chance to snub him?" It was the Vain Elf which slept in the shadow of the Wise Woman in the breast of Pemrose Lorry, that stored this wish, laid it up, a vengeful arrow in the blue quiver of her eyes, now shooting piqued, sidelong glances at those flaunting big boys. "Why-y _should_ we run up against them here? Well! he'll never get a chance to play Jack at a Pinch--friend in need--to me again. Watch me--watch me pick my steps!" She picked them so at random, at the moment, moving off, that she came near slipping in for that eerie ducking, with the blind fish--pale as phantoms, swimming round--and Stud, flinging the striped garter away, hurried after her--Jessie, too!