“Well, we’ll get it yet, if they have carried it off,” young Brackett ventured to suggest. “We’ll do nothing of the kind,” cried John Hart, angrily. “You idiot! Can’t you see we’re beaten? Some one has been down in the night and helped them. That must have been true, what they said about the other chaps. The best thing we can do is to keep quiet about what we have done, or we’ll have the whole town laughing at us for working on their boat.” Young Harry Brackett looked pained. CHAPTER IX. HARRY BRACKETT PLAYS A JOKE Southport, albeit not a place of great hilarity, took a night off once a fortnight or so, and enjoyed itself in rollicking fashion. Up the island, about a mile and a half from the harbour, there was a small settlement, consisting of a half-dozen houses clustered together, overlooking a pretty cove that made in from the western shore. They were a part of the town of Southport, though separated from the rest. It had been, in fact, the original place of settlement, and there was a church and town hall there. This town hall, bare and uninviting in appearance for the most of its existence, brightened up smartly on these fortnightly occasions, putting on usually some vestments of running pine and other festoons of trailing vines, and adorned with wild flowers in their season. A glittering array of lamps, some loaned for the occasion, made the hall brilliant; while a smooth birch floor, polished and waxed as shining as any man-o’warsman’s deck, reflected the illumination and offered an inviting surface for dancing. Overhead, on the floor above, it was often customary to serve a baked bean supper before the dancing, with its inevitable accompaniment of pie of many varieties. Everybody took part in the dances, from Benny Jones, who had one wooden leg, but who could hop through the Boston Fancy with amazing nimbleness, to old Billy Cook, who arrayed his feet, usually bare, in a pair of heavy boots that reached to his knees, and in which he clattered about the hall with a noise like a flock of sheep. Even the squire consented to unbend from his dignity on some of these occasions, stalking through a few dances stiffly, as a man carved out of wood. As for young Harry Brackett, he would have been welcomed, also, and indeed had formerly taken part in the festivities. But, since his return from Boston and from some of the livelier summer resorts, he had referred to the island dances contemptuously as “slow.” The campers usually went up to see the fun; and Henry Burns, who was a favourite about the island, and George Warren were usually to be seen among the dancers.