bank before the
Spence cottage and crowded in at the narrow gate.

"Whar is he? Whar's Willie?" demanded Zenas Henry. Then, catching
sight of the old inventor half concealed behind his workbench, he
shouted:

"Here, Willie, you rascal, out with you! Don't go hidin' there behind
that table. Man alive, why didn't you tell us what you was up to?"

"Did it work, Zenas Henry?" queried the little fellow eagerly.

"Did it work!" mimicked Zenas Henry with a guffaw. "Say, Phineas, did
it?"

The fishermen gave an exuberant roar of laughter.

"Did it work?" repeated Zenas Henry so out of breath that he could
scarcely articulate the words. "Good Lord, don't it just! Why, we
clipped along through that seaweed as if it warn't there."

"You didn't get snagged then?"

"Snagged? Not much! Ain't we been ridin' in an' out every little eel
grass cove along the shore just for the sheer deviltry of seein' if we
could get snagged?" piped Captain Benjamin. "There'll be no more
rockin' in the channel for us. My eye! Think of that!"

"How ever did you manage it, Willie?" Zenas Henry questioned.

"What makes you so sure it was me?"

"Oh, Lord! Who else would it be?"

"Well, it warn't all me," protested the little inventor modestly.
"Most of it was Bob. I got the idee an' he did the rest--him an' Mr.
Galbraith's friend, Mr. Snellin'."

"Well, I'm clean beat--that's all I can say," observed Zenas Henry,
mopping his brow. "I tell you what, it's made a new thing of that
motor-boat. There's no thankin' you. All is, Willie, if you want
anything of mine it's yours for the askin'. Just speak up an' you can
have it."

A radiant smile spread over the face of the spinner of cobwebs.

"You ain't got nothin' I covet, Zenas Henry," he answered slowly, "but
you've got somethin' Bob Morton wants powerful bad."

He saw a mystified expression steal into Zenas Henry's face.

"Happiness didn't come to you early in life, Zenas Henry," went on
Willie, his voice taking on a note of gentle persuasion, "an' often
I've heard you lament you was cheated out of spendin' your youth with
Abbie. Of course, marryin' late is better than not marryin' at all,
though. Some of the rest of us--" he motioned toward the three
captains and Celestina, "have got passed by altogether. But Delight
an' Bob have found love early, while the bloom is still on it. You
wouldn't wish to keep 'em from their birthright, would you, Zenas
Henry?"

In the hu