"It is all here waiting for you," I shouted back, striking a match on my much maligned breeches and lighting my briar pipe leisurely. "Well,--why'n the devil don't you bring it aboard?" "Why don't you come and fetch it?" I cried. "I'm a store-keeper, Mister Joe Clark,--not a delivery wagon. I sell f.o.b. the veranda." And I smoked on. He jumped out of the boat and rushed up the beach like a madman. I sat still, smoking away dreamily, but with a weather eye on him. He stood over me, rolled up his sleeves and contemplated me, then he turned and shouted to his man: "Hi, Plumbago! Come on and lend a hand with this cargo. No use wasting any time on this tom-fool injun." To say I was surprised, was to put it mildly, for I was sure a quarrel was about to be precipitated. Joe Clark and his man set to, carrying the boxes, and bundles, and packages piecemeal from the veranda to the boat, while I smoked and smoked as if in complete ignorance of their presence. I knew I was acting aggravatingly, but then, I had been very much aggravated. In an ordinary circumstance I would have been only too pleased to lend a hand if asked and, possibly, without being asked,--although there was nothing calling for me to do so,--but when ordered,--well,--how would any other fellow with a little pride in him have acted? Still, I must give Joe Clark his due. He made two trips to that dinghy against his helper's one and he always tackled the heaviest and the most unwieldy packages. When he came for the last box, I rose to go into the house. As I turned, he caught me by the arm. "Here!" he shouted. I whipped round. "Take your hands off me," I cried angrily, jerking my arm in an old wrestling trick and throwing my weight on him at an unbalanced angle, freeing myself and sending him back against the partition. He recovered himself and we stood facing each other defiantly. "God!" he growled, "but I'd like to kill you. You think you've won this time. Maybe you have, but, by God! you won't be in this store a month from now. I'll hound you out, or kick you out,--take it from me." "And I'll stand by," I replied, "and take it all quietly like the simple little lamb I'm not." I went into the house and closed the door, and the last I saw of Joe Clark that day was through the window as he packed his last box and pushed off in the dinghy. CHAPTER XIII A Visit, A Discovery and a Kiss In the cool of the evening, I came to the conclusion that I had earned for myself the privilege of the enjoyment of a swim, so I threw my clothes on my bed, got into my costume, ran out on to the rocks, dived in and away. I did not go out into the Bay this time, but kept leisurely along the beach fronting the neighbouring property, keeping at a safe distance from the tangle of seaweed, which, somehow, seemed to gather at that particular part of the Crescent.