The superintendent generally stopped in at the captain’s if the morning were stormy; it was nearer his lodgings than the farmhouse where he took his meals—and then breakfast at the captain’s cost nothing. He had come in on this particular day ostensibly to protest about the sloop’s having gone to the Ledge without a notification to him. He had begun by saying, with much bluster, that he didn’t know about the one stone that Caleb West was “reported” to have set; that nothing would be accepted unless he was satisfied, and nothing paid for by the department without his signature. But he ended in great good humor when the captain invited him to breakfast and placed him at his own right hand. Carleton liked little distinctions when made in his favor; he considered them due to his position. The superintendent was a type of his class. His appointment at Shark Ledge Light had been secured through the efforts of a brother-in-law who was a custom-house inspector. Before his arrival at Keyport he had never seen a stone laid or a batch of concrete mixed. To this ignorance of the ordinary methods of construction was added an overpowering sense of his own importance coupled with the knowledge that the withholding of a certificate—the superintendent could choose his own time for giving it—might embarrass everybody connected with the work. He was not dishonest, however, and had no faults more serious than those of ignorance, self-importance, and conceit. This last broke out in his person: he wore a dyed mustache, a yellow diamond shirt-pin, and on Sundays patent leather shoes one size too small. Captain Joe understood the superintendent thoroughly. “Ain’t it cur’us,” he would sometimes say, “that a man’s old’s him is willin’ ter set round all day knowin’ he don’t know nothin’, never larnin’, an’ yit allus afeard some un’ll find it out?” Then, as the helplessness of the man rose in his mind, he would add, “Well, poor critter, somebody’s got ter support him; guess the guv’ment’s th’ best paymaster fur him.” When breakfast was over, the skipper of the Screamer dropped in to make his first visit, shaking the water from his oilskins as he entered. “Pleased to meet yer, Mis’ Bell,” he said in his bluff, wholesome way, acknowledging the captain’s introduction to Mrs. Bell, then casting his eyes about for a seat, and finally taking an edge of a window-sill among the sou’westers. “Give me your hat an’ coat, and do have breakfast, Captain Brandt,” said Mrs. Bell in a tone as hearty as if it were the first meal she had served that day. “No, thank ye, I had some ’board sloop,” replied Captain Brandt. “Here, cap’n, take my seat,” said Captain Joe. “I’m goin’ out ter see how the weather looks.” He picked up the first hat he came to,—as was his custom,—and disappeared through the open door, followed by nearly all the seafaring men in the room.