Scud's "easiness" was unmitigated--at times it was exasperating; but this made him all the fatter, the jollier, the more companionable; and as it succeeded so well, why not? Summer boarders were appreciative of Scud. He lived upon them. Twins?--they did it. It was a dime show, and the money was paid. Two sets of authentic twins! It was enough to drain a woman's heart of sympathy, a woman's pocket of money; and the summer boarders were mostly women--married women, with husbands sweating in the city to support them; single women, school-teachers and that sort. But Scud stood looking at the ties. He seldom bought clothes, any more than he purchased firewood or paid for his fish. They came to him. Here was a pair of trousers that was once a bishop's. That coat and vest were the velveteen relics of a posing artist. The cap was a yachtsman's gift, and the neckties came as a matter of course. Yet Scud never begged. And once when he caught one of his four-year-old boys insinuating to a summer boarder, with outstretched palm, that he would like a penny, Scud thrashed him within a centimeter of his life. New England fishermen will take a gift as a sort of neighborly accommodation to you; but he'll starve before he will ask you for it. "Are them fur me?" (Scud was always surprised at such a crisis.) "Thank ye, ma'am. Ain't them showy? I guess they'll skeer the mac'rel off the coast." "I wanted you to take me out sailing this morning, Mr. Scud," I began, after a formal introduction. Scud looked somewhat gratified with the prefix to his name, and regarded me with interest. To take boarders out sailing at the rate of seventy-five cents an hour was the kind of work he would do. "Yes, ma'am. But I'm 'fraid it'll be a little fresh to-day, if ye hain't used to sailin'." He jerked his head to the westward. "Salt is a makin' the dory fast with a new haulin'-line, ma'am. I guess we'll have a squall pretty soon." We followed Scud's gesture and looked. A squall on a day like this? The white streamers had vanished, and above us was dark, unfathomable blue. But on the western horizon, stretching far to the south, a black bank had arisen. No cloud in the physical geography was ever sketched blacker. It had come up as stealthily as a Zulu warrior. It was the hue of unpolished iron. It had a faint reddish tint. Its outline was as clear cut as a cameo. It sent ahead here and there jagged tentacles, broad at the base and fine at the tip, that advanced, dissolved, and reappeared again with significant rapidity. The ocean had suddenly grown lethargic. It seemed unable to reflect the sun that still shone. It became like a platter of tarnished silver. As we looked, the sight rapidly grew uglier.