Sally was fifteen when the final good news came from Fox. She was in Uncle John's office, waiting until he should be ready to go. Uncle John's office was on the second floor of a little old wooden building where it had always been since Uncle John had had an office. He had chosen it because it stood just at the head of a short street leading to a certain wharf--Hazen's Wharf; and because from its windows one could see the length of the street and the length of the wharf and note what was going on there and how many vessels were fitting. The number of vessels that were fitting was surprisingly great, even now, and Sally could see their yards sticking out over the wharf, although their hulls were mostly hidden behind projecting buildings. That view from his office windows had saved Mr. Hazen many steps in the course of a long life. The fact that the business centre of the town had moved up and had left him stranded disturbed him not at all. He was still in his business centre. So Sally, thinking vaguely of Fox and Henrietta, sat at a window and watched and was very well content with the view of the harbor and the wharf and the ends of yards sticking over it, and as much of the hulls of vessels as she could see, and the row of oil casks with a rough fence of old ships' sheathing behind them, and the black dust of the street. The black dust was stirred up now and then by the feet of horses and by the wheels of the low, heavy truck that they were dragging. Then a man, with a heavy mallet in his hand, approached the row of casks and began to loosen the bungs. It was an operation that had become familiar to Sally and she knew it to be preparation for the work of the gauger, who would come along later and measure what was in the casks. The man with the mallet and the gauger with his stick were familiar figures. But certain other familiar figures drew into her view and watched the man loosening the bungs, and seemed to be greatly interested in the proceeding. They were the Carlings and Oliver Pilcher. Sally wondered what mischief they were up to. That they were up to some mischief she had not a doubt. The man with the mallet must have been a very trusting, unsuspicious man. It is not at all likely that the angelic faces of the singing twins and Oliver Pilcher were unknown about the wharves. Even if they were, why, boys are all--even the best of them--they are all cut by the same pattern, or they ought to be. Don't we--you and I--feel a sort of contempt for a boy who is not? And don't we call him "sissy" in our hearts? The other boys will not confine their calls of "sissy" to their hearts and it is likely to go hard with that boy.