ach. One
could bathe at Morris's, but the beach near by was not particularly
good. One could hire boats there and buy bait for a fishing trip. In
one of its phases it made some pretensions to being a summer hotel. It
had an extensive barroom. There was a dancing floor, none too smooth.
There were long verandahs on three sides. That on the south side was
built on piles' people ate and drank there in the summer; beneath it
the water swished and gurgled when the tide was in.

The townspeople of Fairport, or the more respectable ones, kept away
from Morris's, summer and winter. Summer transients, inhabitants of
the bungalows during the bathing season, patronized the place. But
most of the patronage at all seasons seemed to consist of automobile
parties from the city; people apparently drawn from all classes, or
eluding definite classification entirely. In the bleakest season there
was always a little stir of dubious activity about Morris's. In the
summer it impressed you with its look of cheapness. In the winter,
squatted by the cold water amidst its huddle of unpainted outhouses, at
the end of a stretch of desolate beach, the fancy gave Morris's a touch
of the sinister.

Cleggett was anxious to get the Jasper B. into seaworthy condition as
soon as possible. It occurred to him that the employment of expert
advice should be his first step, and early the next morning he hired
Captain Abernethy. That descendant of a seafaring family, though he
felt it incumbent upon him to offer objections that had to be overcome
with a great show of respect, was really overjoyed at the commission.
He left his own cottage a mile or so away and took up his abode in the
forecastle at once. By nine o'clock that morning Cleggett had a force
of workmen renovating both cabin and forecastle, putting the cook's
galley into working order, and cleansing the decks of soil and sand.
That night Cleggett spent on the vessel, with Captain Abernethy.

By Saturday of the same week--Cleggett had bought the vessel on
Wednesday--he was able to take up his abode in the cabin with his books
and arms about him. To his library he had added a treatise on
navigation. And, reflecting that his firearms were worthless,
considered as modern weapons, he also purchased a score of .44 caliber
Colt's revolvers and automatic pistols of the latest pattern, and a
dozen magazine rifles.

He brought on board at the same time, for cook and cabin boy, a
Japanese l