“P’r’aps you be,” thought Billy. “I don’t like to part with that island, squire,” he said. “If you want it, you’d better draw up the papers, right away to-day, and we’ll go over to Mayville and have everything filed straight and regular. Else I might get sorry and back out.” “All right,” said Squire Brackett. “We can’t do it any too soon to suit me,” he thought. So Uncle Billy and Squire Brackett went to Mayville, and the squire generously paid the fares. “Guess I can stand it, at a thousand dollars profit,” said the squire to himself. Henry Burns and Jack Harvey, arising on the morning following their adventure with Mr. Carleton, proceeded at once to restore the yacht to its former condition, by purchasing at Rob Dakin’s a strong lock for the cabin. It was heavier and clumsier than the one that had been broken, but, as Henry Burns remarked, it was good enough for fishermen. Then they sailed down alongshore to where the crew had made their lobster-pots, went to work, and, in a few days, completed the making of the remainder to the extent of their material. This proved easier fishing, too, in a way, than the outside cod and hake fishing, and involved, of course, no danger, as the pots were set near shore. And, as they had got their lath-pots practically without expense, it was likely to prove even more profitable, while it lasted. The car that they had made, to keep the lobsters alive in, was a big, square boxlike affair, with the slats nailed on just far enough apart so the lobsters could not escape, but affording a flow of sea-water through the car almost as free as the sea itself. The two trap-doors in the roof of the car, through which the lobsters were put in and taken out, were fastened with heavy padlocks. The car was moored in a sheltered nook alongshore, a little distance above the area of water covered by the lath-pots. They learned how to pack the live lobsters for shipping, too, and sent lots, now and then, by steamer, over to the Bellport and Mayville markets, and to Stoneland. They learned how to stow them into a flour-barrel with their tails curled snugly under, and their backs uppermost, so they could not move; and that a barrel would hold just fifty-five, by actual count, stowed in that way, allowing for ice at the top, and all covered securely with a piece of coarse sacking. They received as much as twelve and fifteen cents a pound for these, shipped so that they would arrive alive at market, and began to feel quite prosperous. They listened to many a learned discussion, in Rob Dakin’s cracker and sugar-barrel forum, over the habits of the lobster; how it was generally conceded by the local fisherman that the lobster took the bait better at night; but that other wise men among the catchers argued stoutly that flood-tide, whether it served by night or day, was the more favourable time; and how both the ebb and flow of the tides doubtless carried the lobsters back and forth across the feeding-grounds.