und that he could not do so now. He tossed them on
the table and once more went out of doors. After another glance at the
bungalow, he walked to the edge of the bluff and looked over.

He was astonished to see how far the tide had risen in the night. The
line of seaweed and drift marking its highest point was well up the
bank. Now the ebb was foaming past the end of the wharf. He looked for
the lobster car, which should have been floating at its moorings, but
could not see it. Either it was under the wharf or it had been swept
away and was gone. And one of the dories was gone, too. No, there it
was, across the cove, high and dry on the beach. If so much damage was
visible from where he stood, it was probable that a closer examination
might show even more. He reentered the kitchen, took the boathouse key
from its nail--the key to Seth's wonderful purchase, the spring lock
which was to keep out thieves and had so far been of no use except as
a trouble-maker--and started for the wharf. As he passed the table he
picked up the bundle of newspapers and took them with him. The boathouse
was the repository for rubbish, old papers and magazines included,
and these might as well be added to the heap. Atkins had not read this
particular lot, but the substitute assistant did not think of this.

The lobster car was not under the wharf. The ropes which had moored
it were broken, and the car was gone. Splinters and dents in the piles
showed where it had banged and thumped in the grasp of the tide before
breaking loose. And, lying flat on the wharf and peering under it, it
seemed to him that the piles themselves were a trifle aslant; that the
whole wharf had settled down on the outer side.

He rose and was about to go further out for another examination, when
his foot struck the pile of papers he had brought with him. He picked
them up, and, unlocking the boathouse door--it stuck and required
considerable effort to open it--entered the building, tossed the papers
on the floor, and turned to go out. Before he could do so the door swung
shut with a bang and a click.

At first he did not realize what the click meant. Not until he tried to
open it did he understand. The settling of the wharf had thrown the door
and its frame out of the perpendicular. That was why it stuck and opened
with such reluctance. When he opened it, he had, so to speak, pushed it
uphill. Its own weight had swung it back, and the spring lock--in which
he had left