It was necessary to go almost to the packet’s berth to determine whether she was there, for the elms loomed high along the shore road. No masts showed above the storehouse when he came in sight of it, but to assure himself the Squire walked out on the wharf and peered around the corner of the building. The packet’s berth was empty and there was no sign of her on the narrow sea line at the mouth of the cove. “Hard-Times” Wharff stood by one of the hawser piles, looking to sea. “I wisht I was a garsoline ingine instead of a weather-vane, Squire Look,” confessed the old man, regretfully. “The wind it bloweth where it listeth, sayeth the Scriptur’s, but”--he sucked his tongue to imitate the explosions of an engine, “tchock! tchock! tchock! Garsoline don’t have to wait and list. It can go any time, day or night. I wisht I knowed better how it works, but Nymp’ Bodfish wouldn’t let me aboard this mornin’ to see how it does it.” “Did he get away early, Uncle Aquarius?” “I was down here at four to see whuther the sunrise was goin’ to be pink or yaller, ’cause you know a yaller sunrise follerin’ on sun-dogs means----” “Let the weather stand for a moment,” broke in the Squire, a bit impatiently. “What time was it when Bodfish sailed?” “Break o’ day, no wind but garsoline, oil on the heave, and ‘Hard-Times’ went aboard with him wrapped in a shawl. And he wouldn’t let me come on to see the tchock, tchock, tchocker.” The Squire’s suspicions required no further confirmation. He hastened away up the wharf. “The sneak!” he hissed through set teeth. “The pup!” But he did not refer to Captain Nymphus Bodfish of the “Effort.” The man that was in his mind was just tying his horse at the post in front of Brickett’s store, and as the Squire approached, hurrying up the road, he shook the dust from his gloves and started leisurely along ahead of him, blandly oblivious of the other, to all appearances. “Good-morning, Bradish,” said the lawyer, curtly, as he came up behind him. He slackened his pace for a moment. Then he set his lips as though to hold back something that he had intended to say, and hastened past. “Business seems to be rushing with you this morning,” observed Bradish, with his tantalising drawl. The Squire walked on. “I say, Look!” The man’s tone was insolent. The lawyer’s evident anxiety to avoid him spurred his bravado. “You’ve put your nose into my affairs this time so far that you can’t pull it out by dodging me.” The Squire held up and the man came close to him. “What do you mean, Bradish?” “I mean that the other evening you made me the laughing-stock of the gossips of this town by stepping in between me and the lady I was escorting. You have compromised her, and now her father----”