As she quitted the doorway, and before she turned to see if I were following, I questioned her father with a look, and got another nod of approval. He certainly was putting my liberty on my honor. Old Steve chuckled joyously at her request, and it wasn’t ten minutes before a light and graceful canvas canoe was bobbing alongside the starboard landing stairs. And the old bo’s’n added this suggestion to the fishing part of the picnic: “I don’t guess as how you’ll find overmuch fish atween here and the beach, missy; but onless this region is dead changed, the shallows is full of crabs; so I just brought this here net along in case----” “Oh, dandy! I just dote on scoopin’ ’em in!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “And we’ll take along a kettle. Why, it’ll just be scrumptious! And you can tell Saki that he needn’t expect us to dinner.” Whereupon she took her place in the bow of the frail craft, and caught up her paddle, and not ten strokes were needed to prove that she was no novice at the trick. We reached the main beach within a half hour, then coasted along its shallows, scooping up the crustaceans. We made a goodly haul in short order, and by noon she had had enough of the sport. “Let’s land on the beach, leave the canoe pulled up, and take our kettle over to the ocean side of the bar,” she proposed. “We can make a bully good fire of driftwood. My, but this is all primitive and bully, isn’t it?” And it was all I could do to keep from telling her just how bully it was to me, and how I’d like to keep on this way forever. But before we got that fire started, we met a difficulty. I hadn’t a match--not a single one. This was an insuperable difficulty, that cleared quicker and easier than usual, for a blue-uniformed government coast guard came trudging his solitary beat along the hardened sands where the tide had run out. He seemed not a whit surprised at seeing such a couple as we were. I suppose he credited “summer folks” with any kind of asininity, even to paddling a canoe clear over from Babylon. “A match?” he echoed genially. “Why, shore! Here you are,” and he produced one from behind his ear, where he carried a half dozen. As he handed it over, I detected a lingering eye on our catch. “You certainly got quite a mess, didn’t you?” he commented. “Yes; don’t you want some of ’em?” I asked. “Why, I don’t care if I do,” he answered. “The boys up to the station ain’t got much time to catch ’em themselves. Ef you don’t mind, I’ll jest take along a half dozen.” So saying, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, tore a sheet from it, and, to our hearty urging, wrapped up a full dozen. Then he wished us a good appetite for our crude meal, and once more strode away at his steady, distance-covering gait. It was with the intention of starting the fire at once that I caught up the sheet of newspaper he had left behind him; but, after one glance, I didn’t burn it.