"Maybe not, Judah," he admitted. "It is a queer berth, but it's a berth, and, unless these legs of mine get well a lot quicker than I think they will, I may be mighty thankful to have any berth at all." He told his sister this when she called to learn if the rumor she had heard was true. She shook her head. "Perhaps it is all right, Sears," she said. "I suppose you know best. But, somehow, I--well, I hate to think of your doin' it." "I know. You're proud, Sarah. Well, I used to be proud too, before the ship-chandlery business and the Old Colony railroad dismasted me and left me high and dry." She put a hand on his arm. "Don't, Sears," she pleaded. "You know why I hate to have you do it. It don't seem--it don't seem--you know what I mean." "A man's job. I know. Judah said the same thing. I took Judge Knowles' offer because it seemed the only way I could earn my salt. If I didn't take it you and Joel might have had a poor relation to board and lodge. And you've got enough on your hands already, Sarah." She sighed. "Of course I knew that was why you took it," she said. Yet, even as he said it, he realized that the statement was not the whole truth. The fifteen hundred a year salary had tempted him, but if he had not gone to the Fair Harbor on that forenoon and seen Elizabeth Berry brave the committee and her mother, it is extremely doubtful if he would have yielded. In all probability he would have declined the judge's offer and have risked the prospect of the almost hopeless future, for a time longer at least. But, having accepted, he characteristically cast doubts, misgivings and might-have-beens over the side, as he had cast wreckage over the rails of his ships after storms, and, while Bayport buzzed with gossip and criticism and surmise concerning him, took up his new duties and went ahead with them. The morning following that of his dramatic scene with the committee he limped to the door of the Fair Harbor and, for the first time, entered that door as general manager. He anticipated, and dreaded, a perhaps painful and surely embarrassing scene with Mrs. Berry, but was pleasantly disappointed. Elizabeth, true to her promise, had evidently broken the news to her mother and, also, had reconciled the matron to her partial deposing. Mrs. Berry was, of course, a trifle martyrlike, a little aggrieved, but on the whole resigned. "I presume, Captain Kendrick," she said, "that I should have expected something of the sort. Dear 'Belia is abroad and Judge Knowles is ill, and, from what I hear, his mind is not what it was." Sears, repressing a smile, agreed that that might be the case. "But, of course, Mrs. Berry," he explained, "I did not take the position with the least idea of interferin' with you. You will be--er--er--well, just what you have been here, you know. I've shipped to help you and the judge and Miss Elizabeth in any way I can, that's all."