no small matter."

"Did you ever know any one to go hungry in this house?"

"Well, no; I can't say I ever did."

"Do you imagine boarders will eat more than Bob or I?"

"Mercy on us! I hope not."

"Well, you always gave us enough to eat. I guess if you contrived to
do that you needn't worry about your boarders," chuckled His Highness.

CHAPTER IV

WALTER MAKES HIS BOW TO HIS EMPLOYER

The last day of June dawned dismal and foggy. A grim gray veil
enshrouded Lovell's Harbor, rendering it cold and dreary. Had one been
visiting it for the first time he would probably have turned his back
on its forlornity and never have come again. The sea was wrapped in a
mist so dense that its vast reach of waves was as complete a secret as
if they had been actually curtained off from the land. On every leaf
trembled beads of moisture and from the eaves of the sodden houses the
water dripped with a melancholy trickle.

It was wretched weather for the Crowninshields to be coming to
Surfside and yet that they were already on the way the jangling
telephone attested.

"I wouldn't have had 'em put in an appearance a day like this for the
world!" fretted Jerry Taylor, who for some unaccountable reason seemed
to hold himself responsible for the general dampness and discomfort.
"Fog ain't nothin' to us folks who are used to it. We've lived by the
ocean long enough to love it no matter how it behaves. But for it to
go actin' up this way for strangers is a pity. It gives 'em a bad
impression same's a ill-behaved child does."

"But you can't help it," ventured Walter, who had just come into
sight.

"N-o. Still, somehow, I'm always that anxious for the place to look
it's prettiest that I feel to blame when it doesn't."

The boy nodded sympathetically. Deep down within him lay an
inarticulate affection for the hamlet in which he had been born and
the great throbbing sea that lapped its shores. He therefore
understood Jerry's attitude and shared in it far more than he would,
perhaps, have been willing to admit. Nevertheless he merely knocked
the drops from his rubber hat, muttered that it was a rotten day, and
loitered awkwardly about, wondering just what to do.

At last school was at an end. He had squeaked through the examinations
with safety if not with glory, and having wheeled his small trunk up
to Surfside on a wheelbarrow and deposited it in his room he
speculated as to what to do next. There was plenty he might have d