The next morning, before sunrise, the barking of Oliver Cromwell and a thin, blue smoke curling from the stovepipe of the _Helen_ told that the lost alumnus was preparing breakfast. Jim and Percy had started off with their trawls some time before. Stevens volunteered to help their visitor repair his boom, so Filippo went out with Lane to haul the lobster-traps. All the boys were back at noon, when Thorpe, repairs made, waved farewell and sailed slowly out of the cove, dog and cats manning the side of the _Helen_, as if for a last salute. Throppy told of his morning's work. "Tried to pay me for what I did; but of course I wouldn't take anything. You might not think it, but, inside, that old boat is as neat as wax. Got a good library on board, too; books there that were beyond me. All the current magazines. Easy to see how he keeps up to date about everything." At two o'clock that afternoon in popped the _Calista_ in quest of lobsters. The boys told her captain about their strange caller. Higgins laughed shortly. "What--old Thorpe! Oh yes, I've known of him these twenty years! Mystery? Not so much as you might think. It's the same mystery that's ruined a lot of other men--John Barleycorn! Thorpe showed up from nobody knows where about a quarter of a century ago; and ever since then he's been banging up and down the coast in that old boat. They say he's a college graduate gone to the bad from drink." "What supports him?" asked Lane. "Does he fish?" "Not more than enough to supply himself and his live stock. I've heard he's got wealthy relatives who furnish him with all the money he needs. He likes to live in this style, and they like to have him. He's out of their way, and they're out of his. In the winter he ties the sloop up in some harbor and stops aboard." "He seemed to be sober enough last night," said Jim. "Yes; when he's all right you couldn't ask for a man to be more peaceable or gentlemanly; but when he's in liquor, look out! I passed him a month ago one squally day off Monhegan, running before the wind, sheet fast, shot to the eyes, and yelling like a wild man. It's a dangerous trick to make that sheet fast on a squally day, or on any day at all, for that matter. Some time he'll do it once too often. Well, as the saying goes, 'When rum's in, wit's out!' How's lobsters?" XVII BLOWN OFF At two o'clock on a Friday morning toward the end of August Spurling and Whittington started with six tubs of trawl, baited with salted herring, for Clay Bank. Long before sunrise the last fathom of ground-line had gone overboard and the tubs were empty. Swinging the _Barracouta_ about, they retraced their course to the first buoy. A long, oily ocean swell, heaving in from the south, undulated the breezeless sea. The air was mild, almost suspiciously so. Dawn was breaking redly as they reached their starting-point and prepared to pull in the trawl. "I'll haul the first half, Perce," volunteered Spurling.