Life — January 18, 1929 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Seascape By Eric Hatch Peter SessELENDEN’s motor boat coughed twice. In the bow Peter Sesselenden made noises. He too might have been coughing twice. The engine stopped. He turned to his nephew at the wheel. “Willie, what’s the trouble?” “The damn thing’s stopped.” From where she lay on a cushion in the stern, Eloise Brown gave Willie a look. “No!” she said. “Yes,” said Willie Sesselenden. “I think something's the matter with it.” Eloise Brown looked at the waves. There was that in her eyes that made Peter Sesselenden make noises again. He had seen that look before, the day his first wife had caught him trying to make tomato soup in the percolator. He knew what the look meant and he liked the way of it. For two months he'd been plotting a system for making his nephew “tie a can to this Eloise girl,” as he put it. He had failed. “Now,” he chuckled to him- self, “I have made the mountain come to Mohammed.” He turned to his nephew: “Willie, for heaven's sake fix the thing. We'll be out here all night if you don’t. Heh, heh, that would be very uncom- fortable for Eloise.” Willie began doing things. He tried cranking. He took off the carburetor. Peter Sesselenden got interested. He put the carburetor on again. He put it on backwards. Willie took it off and put half of it back on. His Uncle sat on the other half. Willie didn’t know this. Neither did Eloise. She said: “For Pete's sake, snap into it. It’s get- ting late.” Willie took off the distributor and didn’t see his Uncle snitch the lug and stick it in his pocket. Eloise said: “Of all the plumbers I ever saw, Willie Sesselenden, you head the guild.” Willie turned to her. He said: “Shut up before I crack you one.” Uncle Peter got coughing again. By ten o'clock that night the engine had become an unidentihable mass. So had Willie. By eleven, the ground swell had scored heavily against Eloise. When dawn came over the Sound, Peter Sesselenden lay in the bows sleeping the sleep of a happy baby. He had dreamed such nice dreams of a world where his nephew wasn’t trying to marry a dancer —a rotten dancer, too—with a penchant for caviar. As he recalled in his dream the caviar, the thought came to him that it had taken time but he'd gotten back at her about that, anyway. He awoke with a sense of well being and opened his eyes. He saw Eloise sitting erect, staring over the port gunwale. He looked away. Then he saw his nephew— white, haggard, staring to starboard. He wondered if he had been over-drastic. He looked at his watch—his yacht would be along any minute now. There was a smudge astern that was probably she. He felt it was time he said a few words to these young people, closing the incident in the true Sesselenden manner. He coughed. Neither of them stirred. He said: “Hmmmmm.” Not a move answered him. “My nephew Willie,” he began; “and Eloise. You didn’t know it, but the reason we got stuck was because we had no gas. Heh, heh, the reason we had no gas was because I let it out. What do you think of that?” Apparently Eloise didn’t think much of it. Willie looked a vendetta and went on staring at the sea. Uncle Peter continued. “After this past night, my poor, poor young people, you should be grateful in- deed to the old man, heh, heh,” he laughed, “who has saved you, who revealed the truth about the each to the other.” Sesselenden began to get mixed up. He felt his talk wasn’t getting over the way it should. He said: “Thank God I brought about this quar- rel before it was too late. I shudder to think what would have happened had you married.” “T hope you choke on your gruel,” said Eloise, “we've been married for six weeks.” Uncle Peter obligingly shuddered. It seemed indicated. Then he jumped over- board and swam for the yacht. comicbooks.com