IV

THIS EVENT WAS OUR meeting with Lily’s young man himself, on the pier one night.

We had thought we were alone until we perceived a pair of white flannel trousers lying prone on the flooring.

“Dear me,” Tish said, peering at them. “What a strange place for a pair of trousers!”

And then a muffled voice spoke, from over the edge of the pier.

“I’m in them,” it said, “and if I ever get this — — hook out from under this — — edge —”

“I don’t like your language,” Tish said severely.

“Then you’d better go away,” said the voice. “The way things are, I may swear for an hour, or possibly two.”

And then he overreached himself and fell right over the edge and into the water.

He came to the surface in a moment or so, however, and holding onto a piling, with his head above the water, he inspected us.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were three other fellows. Well, I’m calmer now. Nothing like a cold bath to restore the good old morale. Why struggle? Why suffer?”

“You sound unhappy,” said Tish.

“Unhappy? That’s a mild word, ladies. I’m as unhappy as hell. When I consider that by merely ducking my head under this surface for a sufficient length of time I should cease to suffer, I am tempted, strongly tempted.”

And with that he suddenly disappeared into the sea. Never shall I forget my agony of mind, or Aggie’s hysterical moaning.

“He has done it,” she cried. “He has ended it all.” And she sneezed violently.

In a moment, to our great relief, he reappeared at the steps of the pier and pulled himself out of the water. He was quite calm, but he inspected himself ruefully.

“You can see,” he said, “that luck is against me. As I said, why struggle? Why suffer? These are my best flannel trousers, and they are shrinking as I speak. Also, I have learned finally and forever that I shall never make a fisherman. There was a faint hope, but it is gone. I’ve had that infernal hook everywhere, from the back of my neck to underneath the dock, where it is now; everywhere except in a fish’s mouth.”

Well, as he was thoroughly wet and also despondent, Tish sent Aggie at once for some blackberry cordial, and it gave him a more cheerful outlook on life. He declined to go to the hotel and change his clothing, but said that he felt like talking.

“I feel,” he said, “the urge to tell the story of my life, if you will bear with me, and if someone will watch that bottle and see that it does not fall into the sea. The thought of all the little fishes going gaga and—but never mind about that.

“I was born,” he went on, “with a complex against fishing. It is an early impression, rather, due to seeing my nurse eat fish for forty days in Lent. However that may be, I loathe and despise fishing. From the squirming of the worm to the squirming of the unlucky fish, it is horrible to me.

“Judge then of my tragedy when I find the one, the only, girl and discover not only that her father is a fisherman, but that he is a fanatic on the subject. Where other men celebrate a winning in the stock market with wine, he goes out and buys a new reel; he inspects his lines with a magnifying glass; his house is full of stuffed fish mounted on boards. He measures a man by the line he can put out on a cast; his idea of a kiss is the way a trout fly falls onto the water. Just why his daughter wasn’t born with scales—”

“That will do,” said Tish sternly.

“Well, you’ve got the idea. He’s here, and it’s all off. He wants a son-in-law only to take fishing, and I came here, so to speak, on trial. But I went asleep the first day he took me out in a boat; I lost his best reel for him; and I loosened a front tooth for him one day practicing a back cast. And now he’s made a fool wager on a diamond-button fish, and I’m only excess baggage.”

He was silent for a moment.

“What I ought to do,” he said moodily, “is to go home and forget it. And her. I’m doing no good here. I can’t even eat. The way her father looks at me in the dining room gives me indigestion. I’ve got it now. Perhaps a little more of that cordial would help it.”

He cheered after he had taken a glass, and said that he had had various ideas. One of them was to bore a hole in the old man’s boat, and watch him slowly sink. Another was to drain out his gasoline, all but a little, and let him drift to sea, slowly dying of hunger and thirst.

“But the really big idea,” he observed, “would be to land him all alone on one of those empty islands, and let nature take its course!”

Yes, I admit that he said that. But for him to have told Charlie Sands later on that the island was his idea was really absurd. As Charlie Sands must realize now, the island was purely an accident.

On the way back to the cottage Tish commented on his recital.

“All in all,” she said, “this young man would be better off out of that family. Nevertheless, our duty is plain. If the Monster, as Aggie calls him, is to be placated by winning this wager, we must be near at hand to help him in emergency.”

And again I repeat that this was Tish’s kindly idea from the start. She is ever friendly to young love, and to lovers; and in spite of his attitude toward us, she bore no malice toward the man who was later to place us in so awkward a position.

And now I come with a certain reluctance to the further events of that night, which made for a time such a diametric change in our habits of living; forcing on us indeed the need to shift for ourselves under most unpropitious conditions.

As we passed the hotel on our way to the cottage we saw a man run out in fishing garb, followed by others, and we realized that at last the tarpon had reached the passes in numbers. We at once shifted into our bathing suits with the skirts over them, and in our haste neglected to take our mackintoshes or other wraps; an oversight which we were bitterly to regret, especially Aggie.

It was Tish’s idea that we follow the Monster’s boat and this we did, although to our surprise he did not go in the usual direction, but headed down the coast.

“Many fishermen,” Tish informed us, “have secret places of their own, and use them only when safe from observation. We will follow him.”

I think he must have heard our engine, for he speeded up and went very fast; but we also moved rapidly and kept close behind him. It was indeed an eerie feeling, following the sound of his engine through the darkness; once we went aground on a mud bank, and it was necessary for all of us to remove our clothing and work the boat off. As the night was cold, it was a trying business, and it was at that time that our poor Aggie stepped onto a large crab, which closed on one of her toes and held on. A most painful matter.

But we soon located him again, and finally came to a stop not far from his boat. We knew nothing of our surroundings, or even where we were. But there was no time to worry. All the water about us was filled with the great creatures; they swam and rolled and leaped, and suddenly Tish shouted that she had one, and a colossal body shot out of the darkness and hit the water with a thud.

I shall omit the details of that struggle. We at once put on our life belts, and soon it became necessary to lash our valiant Tish to her chair, which was fortunately screwed to the deck. All the time the creature was leaping. It was then that I noticed that our boat was drawing near the other, and that the Monster was shouting at us.

“Keep off me,” he shouted. “Start your engine, you idiots! I’ve got a fish on!”

But as we were still some distance away, and also fully occupied, we paid no attention. Our dear Tish was having all she could do to hold on to her rod, although she managed to gasp that both her shoulders were dislocated, and I was standing by to render assistance if necessary, when a terrible and unexpected thing happened.

In the faint starlight we heard a hideous tearing and smashing of wood, and the other boat rose in the air and then settled back again. We realized with horror what had occurred: Tish’s fish had risen like a projectile under his boat and had practically-wrecked it.

There was a really dreadful silence, followed by the Monster’s voice.

“You — — idiots!” he yelled. “You’ve torn the bottom out of my boat!”

“Nonsense!” Tish called angrily. “The fish did it. If he chooses to try to drown you he’s only doing what a lot of people have contemplated anyhow.”

“Get over here, I tell you! This boat’s sinking under me.”

But I had just started the engine when a really terrible thing happened. The tarpon jumped into our boat.

Never shall I forget that moment. It was an enormous creature, and as it leaped about in the darkness one could hear the furniture smashing. Almost at once I heard a chair go overboard, and as I crawled up onto the roof of the cabin I heard a shout from Aggie, followed by a dull splash, and realized that our poor friend had followed the chair and was afloat in her life belt on that vast expanse of water.

“Aggie!” I called in anguish. “Aggie, where are you?”

Although I could hear her coughing and sneezing somewhere out in that vast expanse, she said nothing; we were now moving rapidly, and the sounds grew more and more faint. All that could be heard was the voice of the Monster, shouting that he was sinking, and an occasional grunt from Tish as the fish struck her a resounding blow.

She was struggling to untie herself, but the knot was at the back of the chair.

It was a terrible situation, with the fish in complete control of the boat, and with one thing following another into the sea: the box of canned foods on which we depended in emergency, the barrel in which we placed our smaller fish, one after another went flying overboard.

And then Tish spoke.

“If you could catch it around the middle you might get rid of it, Lizzie. We really should go back for Aggie.”

“Catch it!” I said, from the roof of the cabin. “It doesn’t stay long enough in one place for me to see it.”

“You could stun it with something.”

“It didn’t stun it perceptibly to go through the bottom of a boat,” I said bitterly. “Well, you’ve got your fish. You’ve learned something about the depths of the sea, and what are you going to do about it?”

All this had taken some little time, but at that moment the fish took another jump and went overboard, and I was enabled to untie Tish. She at once took charge, but what was our horror to find that the miserable creature had broken the tiller rope, and that our boat was completely unmanageable! Also, we had no idea where we were. It was in vain that Tish stopped the engine and called into the darkness. There was no sound whatever from Aggie, and to make matters worse the night was now inky black.

It was indeed a tragic situation, and to add to our anxiety our gasoline was running low. We spoke in low voices of our poor Aggie drifting hither and yon at the mercy of the tides, and Tish, a kindly soul, even spoke well of the Monster.

“He was the victim of an obsession, Lizzie,” she said. “And of course it is possible that he could swim. In that case—”

It was a dreary night, nor did dawn reveal a cheerful prospect. The tide had carried us far into the Gulf, and it was her fear that it had done the same thing with Aggie.

“Bottles placed in the Gulf Stream down here,” she said, “are frequently picked up along the shores of Newfoundland.”

At last we saw land to the east, a number of islands, and were able with the last of our gasoline to reach one of them. Never can I depict the depression of that landing, or of the thought that years later our dear comrade might be washed ashore on some forsaken spot along the Atlantic coast.

But it is not like Tish to despair, and finding that we had one rod remaining, she at once set about fishing for our breakfast, using the fiddler crabs which covered the beach. She had just brought in a fair-sized sheepshead—a very succulent fish—and I was building a fire, when we heard violent sneezing down the beach and looked up to see Aggie, alive and in the flesh, gazing toward us. She was still wearing her life belt, and as she approached we saw that her usual friendly manner had changed.

“Aggie!” I said. “How did you get here?”

“I just drifted id,” she said. “And do thaks to either ob you. To throw be overboard ad thed abadod be. I did’dt thik it of either of you.”

Tish had been eying her.

“Nobody abandoned you,” she said. “But you look abandoned, all right. Where’s your skirt?”

And it was then that Aggie burst into tears.

“A shark took it,” she said, and collapsed onto the beach.

Well, she had really had a difficult time and had taken a bad cold into the bargain. She had floated around for some time, but she had got her chest full of water and couldn’t call out. She heard the Monster swearing frightfully, and at last she heard him swimming, but then everything was quiet. The tarpon bothered her considerably, she said, because they took to jumping all around her and rather knocking her about. But she was really all right until some large fish, she thought a shark, took hold of her skirt and made off with it.

They had gone quite a distance before she managed to unfasten her skirt, but after that things were simpler. She found she was close to land, and at dawn she had succeeded, by using her arms as oars, in rowing herself in.

“But I wadt sobe tea,” she said tearfully. “Sobe hot tea ad toast ad a boiled egg, Tish. I’be cold, ad I’be puckered. Look at be.”

And this was true. Owing to her long immersion in the water her skin was in a wrinkled condition, like a laundress’ hands.

I began at once to fry the fish, for luckily our cooking implements, some sugar, salt and pepper and a jar of salad dressing, had been in the cabin and been saved. But it was sad to watch Aggie when we admitted that we had no gasoline, and were marooned on the island for an indefinite period. Sadder still to admit that our food was gone, and that there were no eggs and no tea.

“Of all the idiotic thigs!” she said angrily. “You might have sat od the food box, Lizzie. If I’be to be drowed all dight ad starved all day—”

Then she stopped and stared up the beach.

“It’s hib!” she said. “The Bodster!” And as she was practically unclothed she had merely time to cover her lower limbs with sand before he was on us.

He was in a towering rage, and he looked very queer. He had no coat and no shoes, and his necktie was hanging in a wet string around his neck. He was shouting at us long before he reached us, and he fixed on Tish at once.

“You—you menace!” he bellowed. “Look at me! Look at your work. I’ve lost my watch. I’ve lost my coat. I’ve lost my pipe and my tobacco. I’ve lost my boat and my fish and a thousand dollars on a bet; and I’ve d——d near lost my life. Killing’s too good for you. Torture! Torture’s what you need.”

He stopped there for breath, and suddenly he saw the fish frying on the fire. That seemed to incense him still further.

“I’ll have you jailed,” he said in a choking voice. “You can all go to jail and rot. You not only leave me to drown; you come here and have a picnic on the strength of it. Well, go on and picnic! I’m going home.”

And with that he waded out into the water and crawled into the boat.

“Now see how you like it,” he shouted. “Maybe I’ll send back for you someday, and maybe I won’t. Probably not. I’ve got a bad memory.”

And with that he tried to start the engine.

He worked over it for twenty minutes, without result, but Tish merely ignored him. We were already eating our frugal breakfast when at last he came ashore. He had the good taste to pass us by and go on, but he took a good look at the food, and I am certain that he hesitated.

“You’ll hear from me later,” he said, and disappeared along the beach.

We were all more cheerful after we had eaten, and Tish pointed out the advantages of our position.

“We have a case of bottled water,” she said, “and if Charlie Sands is correct, there should be plenty of eggs buried along the shore. Also, as we shall need a balanced ration, the heart of a palm tree will provide an excellent salad, for which we have the dressing already prepared. Also we possess an ax to cut down the tree. Sorry as I am to destroy any tree, in this case the end must justify the means. We shall also have coconuts, as I observe a number of them over our heads.”

“Exactly,” said Aggie. “Over our heads. If you thik I’b goig to clibe ode of those trees, Tish Carberry—”

Tish eyed the tree in question thoroughly.

“With coconut milk and eggs, we could have custard,” she said. “There is sugar on the boat, and a bottle of vanilla extract. And if I am not mistaken, there is an oyster bar out there. Oysters, fish, salad, and dessert—no, we shall not starve, Aggie.”

The breakfast had heartened all of us, and as the warm sun came out even Aggie looked less puckered. But she missed her skirt horribly, and as she was threatened with severe sunburn, spent most of the morning in the water once more, standing there rather pathetically, waist-deep. It was not possible to seek shelter in the interior of the island, as we had early discovered that everything in it jagged, including the grass.

Later in the morning Tish and I made a tour of the island, Tish looking for various food possibilities and I watching for a boat that might rescue us. This last was but a faint hope, and it faded when at last, seeing a fishing boat, I waved wildly to it and the fisherman merely waved back cheerfully.

Curiously enough, we saw nothing of the Monster. But this was explained when on our return we found no sign whatever of Aggie, and that the Monster was seated by the remains of our fire, with his head in his hands.

“Great heavens!” Tish gasped. “He’s done away with her.”

But his expression as we approached was far from bloodthirsty. He looked up at us, and he was as dejected and sorry an object as I have ever laid eyes on.

“Look here,” he said hollowly. “Maybe I’ve been a little hasty. Anyhow, you people have got to give me some decent water. You’ve got some locked up in that boat.”

“There’s water on the island,” Tish said coldly.

“That pond’s full of wigglers, madam.”

“Then strain it.”

“Strain it? With what? I haven’t even got a handkerchief. Am I to strain it through the seat of my trousers?”

“You needn’t be vulgar,” Tish reproved him. “For that matter, a few wigglers won’t hurt you. And now I’ll ask you to move on. We are only three weak women. You will have to shift for yourself.”

“Shift for myself! Who brought me to this?” he said furiously. “And three weak women! Good God, madam, if you’d been any weaker I’d not be alive this minute. I warn you, I’m desperate. I’m not safe. I need food and water, and I’m ready to break open that boat to get them.”

“Give him the keys, Lizzie. You will find there,” she said to him, “some sugar, salt and pepper, salad dressing, and vanilla extract.”

“Vanilla extract!” he groaned. “Yes, you’d be sure to have vanilla extract! What the devil am I to do with vanilla extract? I tell you, I need food.”

But Tish merely observed that the island was full of food and that he would better move on. We were about to get dinner. He stared at us queerly and got up.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll move on, all right. I’ll feel safer alone. There’s an alligator on the other side of the island, and I’d rather have him for company anyhow.”

Before he left he asked humbly enough for a few matches.

“For what?” Tish demanded.

“To light a fire, madam. A fire’s cheerful. James and I would enjoy a fire. James is the alligator. For warmth only, of course. We have nothing to cook.”

All this had taken some time, and when he had gone our poor Aggie emerged from the undergrowth as if she had been fired out of a gun. She said she had at last found a tree trunk to sit on, and being weary after her night’s exertion, had dozed lightly. When she wakened a large rattlesnake was sleeping on the tree trunk beside her, and for some time she had not dared to move.

She was quite tremulous, and while Tish and I prepared our midday meal she interred herself once more in the sand and was fairly comfortable, although she complained that a number of small fiddler crabs, appreciating the warmth of her body, were cuddling against her.

Luncheon, always a light meal with us, consisted largely of the delicious stone crabs which were buried along a certain mangrove bank. These Tish brought in, and when boiled and cooled the claws with a French dressing made a delightful meal, and afterward Tish and I left the camp to find if possible a coconut or two on the ground.

We were gone for some hours, and I blame ourselves rather than Aggie for what happened. As we have repeatedly explained to Charlie Sands, Aggie’s situation was desperate. Not only did she feel indecent, but what with mosquitoes and sunburn her lower limbs were in a highly painful condition. As a matter of fact, the Monster was left in no worse condition than hers had been.

It happened as follows:

Tish and I were returning, when we saw a strange figure on the beach. It was not the Monster, being much shorter, but it wore trousers, and Tish at once said that we were saved.

“They have found us, Lizzie,” she said. “There is a boy, coming to get us.”

But I was not so certain. There was something familiar about the walk, and in truth it turned out to be Aggie, clad in the Monster’s trousers.

“Aggie!” Tish said sternly. “If you have made friends with that Monster, that wretch, that unspeakable individual, then—”

But Aggie, who had been sneezing violently with excitement, shook her head.

“Hardly freds, Tish,” she said. “He’s too far out to hear much, but sobe of the thigs he’s called be are terrible.”

“Out where?”

“Od the oyster bar.” Well, it appears that hardly had we started than the Monster appeared again, and Aggie had to retire into the bushes. This time, however, she escaped snakes by climbing a tree, and from there she saw all that happened.

The Monster dug around our ashes and finding the shells of the claws, began to examine them feverishly. But he found nothing, and he then sat down and stared fixedly out to sea. After a time he apparently noticed the oyster bar, and in a moment and to her consternation he was taking off his trousers. Clad thus, in his fishing shirt and underwear, he at once waded out to the bar, and began to detach oysters and breaking them open, to eat them in great numbers. Now and then he looked back at the beach, but as he saw no one he must have felt safe.

But Aggie was struggling against temptation. There on the sand in full view lay protection for her lower limbs, lay warmth at night and decency by day; and at last she succumbed.

Tish was thoughtful during this recital.

“I see no objection,” she said at last, “to an equal distribution; to a day-about arrangement, for example. You have them one day and he the next. If he has any sense of fairness whatever he will agree. After all, you are a woman. Where is he?”

“He’s still od the bar, ad the tide is cobig id.”

This proved to be accurate. Indeed, when after spending some time looking for a palm tree which would be available for salad, we reached our camp again, only his head was above water. But he could still speak. Never in my life, before or since, have I heard such language. Aggie stood with her hands in his pockets, and gazed out at him.

“He cad swib,” she said. “It’s only false pride, Tish. He’d let be go about exposed id a bathig suit, but he’s too proud to be seed id his shirt. He’s got udderwear too, which I hadd’t.”

Well, the tide was still coming in, and finally he did swim to shore, landing at some distance away on a point. There he stood for some time, shaking his fists at us and apparently jumping up and down; but at last he turned and went away, and we were left to peace and a beautiful sunset.

With the coconut milk and some turtle eggs which we found buried in the sand I was able to prepare a very fair omelet for dinner, serving it in the large shells which were scattered over the beach; and as Tish had managed to cut down a young palm, Aggie chilled a salad dressing for it in the sea. Also by grating the coconut into some of its own milk we had a truly delicious drink. Thus fed and comfortable, we slept very well.

But as I have said, coconut gives me indigestion, and toward daybreak it roused me. The night had turned cold, and there was quite a wind. I sat up, and in the starlight I saw a strange and desperate figure. It was bending over Aggie!

With a shriek I roused the others, and the figure quickly departed. We felt, however, that it was not fair to Aggie to sleep again, and we kept watch until morning.

The next two days passed without incident. Our diet, although monotonous, was plentiful, and was varied by a school of mackerel which came in close to shore. With her usual consideration, however, Tish insisted that we leave the beach each afternoon, to allow the Monster to reach the oyster bar, and also was careful to leave the salt and pepper where he could see them.

It was on the third day, I believe, that he seemed to tire of the oysters. Returning a little earlier than usual, we were in time to see him reach the bar and stand there for some time, looking down at the oysters. He seemed to shake his head in a melancholy manner, and then he turned and waded back without touching any of them.

Tish, observing him narrowly, commented on the fact that this process was carried through in silence.

“He is growing gentler,” she observed. “He no longer leaps and shouts. In a few hours he will be open to negotiations.”

The nature of the negotiations she did not divulge, but I desire to call attention to the shrewdness of that prophecy. It was indeed but a few hours; at the time of our evening meal, in fact.

We were eating an excellent supper at the time, and his voice, when it came, showed that he was sheltered in underbrush behind us.

“Ladies,” he said, “things being as they are, I must ask you not to look around. But I have come to appeal to your better natures. I shall not mention the affair of my trousers. It is a delicate matter. But I have come to speak of food. I find that I am surfeited, fed up, with oysters. Today it was all I could do to face that bar. Once I was fond of oysters, but that is gone. Gone forever.”

He seemed to shudder, and Aggie looked at me pitifully. She is very sympathetic. But Tish was uncompromising.

“Lizzie, I’ll have a little more of the boiled mackerel,” she said, and proceeded to eat it calmly.

“It’s like this,” he went on in a plaintive voice. “I apologize for everything. Only don’t ask me to face that oyster bar again.”

“It’s your stomach that speaks, not your heart,” said Tish firmly.

He seemed to be surprised at that.

“My heart?” he inquired. “What’s my heart got to do with it? You don’t expect me to be sorry for those d——d oysters, do you?”

And then Tish told him certain uncomplimentary truths.

“You’ve been a violent man all your life, probably,” she said. “A nuisance and a pest. It is likely that you have had money, and that your employees cringe when they confront you. Aggie, I’ll have the salad now, please. Yes, undoubtedly they hate you as well as fear you. And you’re a bully; your own daughter—”

“What do you know about my daughter?” he asked in amazement.

“Enough. I know that she is in love, and that you have thwarted that love. Your conduct has indeed been brutal. She is brokenhearted.”

He was silent for a moment or so, and I remember now that he seemed almost too astonished to speak.

“In love?” he said at last. “Are you sure of that?”

“She has told me so.”

“Curious,” he observed. “I didn’t know you knew her. I thought the young man—but never mind about that. I don’t suppose you intend to starve me to death as well as steal my pants because my daughter’s in love?”

“We might make a reasonable arrangement,” Tish told him, “while the dessert is being brought on.”

He groaned, and I could fairly feel his eyes boring into me as I carried a caramel custard from the fire.

“Is that a custard?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“A caramel custard?”

“It is,” Tish told him.

He sighed deeply.

“I used to be fond of caramel custard,” he said. “Very fond. It was my favorite dessert. But that was years ago, before I was cast away on an island with three—”

“Three what?” Tish demanded.

“Never mind about that,” he said hastily. “You mentioned an arrangement. What is it? I’m only a weak man, and I dare say I’ll sell my immortal soul, let alone my daughter, for a square meal. For a square meal and my trousers,” he added.

But here Aggie wailed, and Tish firmly stated that the trousers were not to be bargained about. She demanded, and he finally agreed, that he consent to his daughter’s engagement, and that he abide by this agreement.

“Go back, send for the man, and give your daughter to him,” she said. “That agreement finally drawn and placed in Miss Aggie’s pocket—”

“My pocket,” he interrupted.

“—we shall be able to discuss rates for board. Lodging unfortunately we cannot offer.”

“Rates! You’re going to charge me?”

“Why not?” said Tish placidly. “I have certain charities, and the funds shall go to them. Breakfast and lunch will be twenty-five dollars, and dinner fifty. If that is all right with you, you can stand behind that tree and we will pass your dinner to you now. There is plenty here.”

Well, he carried on dreadfully, far worse than about his daughter; but in the end he agreed, and while Tish was writing the agreement I prepared his meal. I made a tray out of the engine hatch cover, and was about to carry it to him when Tish interfered.

“Payment in advance,” she said. “Aggie, take fifty dollars off the roll of bills in your pocket—”

“My pocket,” he said again.

“—and give them to me. All right, Lizzie.”

I never knew a man to eat so much, and strangely enough, when he had finished we heard him laughing. He sat back there in the darkness and laughed and laughed, and I must say it made me creepy.

“Ladies,” he said, “I bow to you. Were conditions other than they are, I would emerge and kneel to you. For sheer highhanded banditry you have the world beaten by a mile, and as for cooking—! You’ve robbed me of my daughter, of my money, and of my pants—and by gad I’m for you. If any of you ever want a newspaper job, come to me.”

And even then we did not realize the awful truth! Not even when we were rescued the next day, nor when within twenty-four hours we received a telegram from Charlie Sands calling Tish home at once.

FOR GOSH SAKE COME HOME AND EXPLAIN WIRE FROM BOSS STOP SITUATION TERRIBLE STOP DON’T WANT THE GIRL AND NEVER DID STOP WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

We had spent the intervening time in bed and had seen no one, and now we packed hastily and prepared to go immediately. None of us was surprised to see Lily and her young man at the dock, and as he had his arm around her we knew that everything was as we had planned. But we were a little surprised at a few words which passed between Tish and Lily just before the boat started.

“Did you hear the news?” she said. “Everything’s all right.”

Tish smiled at her benignly.

“I am very glad,” she said. “We had to use a little moral suasion, but it has worked out perfectly.”

Lily looked a trifle bewildered.

“Really?” she said. “I thought it was because he had caught a diamond-button tarpon.”

Then the boat moved out, and we were left to consider Charlie Sands’ telegram. We could make nothing of it, however, nor of Charlie Sands’ wild expression when we got out of the train.

“Quick!” he said. “Out with it! What in the name of gosh-amighty have you done to me?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Tish. “What could we have done to you?”

Well, he looked fairly stupefied.

“You’re sure of that, are you? You don’t know anything and you didn’t do anything?”

“We have done a number of things, but none that concern you or your affairs.”

“And you didn’t see the boss?”

“Certainly not.”

Well, he seemed stunned. He drew a telegram out of his pocket and handed it to us. It said:

CERTAINLY YOU MAY HAVE HER MY BOY STOP HAD NO IDEA THAT IT WAS SO SERIOUS STOP GOOD LUCK TO YOU.

“I’ve wired back for a confirmation,” he said dejectedly, “but it’s ‘her,’ not ‘it.’ He doesn’t mean the job; he means Clara.”

“Tish!” said Aggie suddenly. “You don’t suppose—”

But Tish silenced her with a look, and we went into the station.

I have related this series of incidents as they occurred, and in the hope that Charlie Sands will read them without bias. He has never been really fair to us, although after all Clara eloped with somebody else a few days later. But he did not get the job, and he has always for some reason held it against us. Especially Aggie.

“A woman who will steal a man’s only pair of trousers will do anything.”

Also it appears that just as soon as Clara had eloped he sent the boss a keg of very fine oysters, and that when they were opened in his presence he turned pale and ordered them out of the office.

“I don’t know why,” he says. “He used to like oysters. But that very day he gave another chap the job.”

But he also says that he is much changed, and that he has ordered that every man on the staff buy two pairs of trousers with every suit. It has become a sort of mania with him.

“A man without trousers is worse than a woman without virtue,” he told them. “For one is wicked, but the other is ridiculous.”

But he has never told the story, nor have we until now, and that without using his name. As a matter of fact, he asked us not to do so, and that in the following manner:

Although we have not related this to Charlie Sands, the “boss” sent Tish that very keg of oysters, and with it a card.

“The oyster has a mouth, but does not talk.”