, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I
heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be
sea-weed--and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound
of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float."

Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in
grim displeasure.

"Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded.

"No--not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a few
moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the
beach, I was horribly frightened."

"Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then,
turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to row
all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take her
boat in."

Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the
least comprehending what all this meant.

"That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was
apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.

She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping
noiselessly into the house.

"I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an
unamiable glance.

"I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, but
I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like."

"You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted.

"Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for my
irritability; it's a bargain between us."

"In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interests
me. I came to see those auks."

"You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said,
contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks."

I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied,
indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was
free to step around the house when I cared to.

I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed
emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his
senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I
argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to
a penguin in that pen.

I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I
came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great
auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their
sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two