The lad believed he understood the mute command, and an instant later the little craft was moving swiftly away, but not at such a pace as to prevent them from hearing the postmaster cry: "If anything has gone wrong, an' I can do you a good turn, let me know, for I'm only too glad to oblige my neighbors." Captain Eph shut his mouth tightly as if to keep back angry words, and when the little craft was a mile or more from the wharf, he said to Mr. Peters: "I hope, Sammy, you'll let this be a lesson to you. Now you can get an idee of how it sounds when a man tries to pry into other folks' affairs." "What do you mean by that?" and the first assistant looked up quickly from the survey of his private stores. "Do you mean to hint that I go 'round pryin' into your business?" "You most generally want to know what's goin' on, an' I've noticed that you contrive to find out." "Perhaps you didn't do any pryin' when you was so keen to see what I'd been buyin'," Mr. Peters retorted, and in the hope of keeping peace between these two old friends by changing the subject of the conversation, Sidney asked: "Why wasn't you willing the postmaster should know what had happened at the ledge, sir?" "Because, Sonny, I wouldn't encourage sich pryin'," Captain Eph replied gravely. "The man ought'er had sense enough to know that the keeper of a first order light don't run 'round tellin' everything he knows. Perhaps if he'd come right out an' asked who you was, I might have told him; but when he beat about the bush, guessin' this and guessin' that, I made up my mind he shouldn't know the least little thing about what was goin' on at the ledge." "The amount of it is that we go ashore so seldom folks think nothin' less'n an earthquake would fetch us out, an' that's why they're so terribly curious," Mr. Peters said in a thoughtful tone, and Captain Eph asked sharply: "Is it in your mind that you don't have enough furloughs?" "Not a bit of it," and Mr. Peters spoke emphatically. "I never go to town that I don't wonder how people can manage to live there, 'cause it's so dreadfully lonesome. Out on the ledge we have somethin' to do, an' can see more or less, 'cept when the fog shuts down, but ashore all they have to look at are the houses, an' I can't figger out why folks will stay there." Having thus given good evidence that Carys' Ledge was to him an ideal place in which to live, Mr. Peters turned all his attention to the re-stowing of his purchases, and Captain Eph watched him suspiciously, until Sidney asked: "How long do you suppose it will be, sir, before my father hears where I am?" "It's all owin' to when a letter can get there, Sonny. You may make up your mind that the Board will send word the quickest way possible, an' we've done the wisest thing by sendin' off the report, for we might wait six months--perhaps more--before we could speak a craft bound to Porto Rico."