g for them. I told you, you remember, that we weren't taking
chances."

For an instant Jeremiah stood there glowering. Then he did another
astonishing thing. He took out the pocketbook once more and from it
extracted a two-dollar bill.

"Take it out of that," he said, "and send me a receipted bill
afterwards. I always cal'late to know what I've paid for. And say,
you--what's your name--Mary-'Gusta, if you get tired of workin' for Shad
Gould and Zoeth Hamilton, come round and see me. I've got--I mean my
wife's got--two or three mortgages that's behind on the interest. I
ain't been able to collect it for her yet, but--but, by time, I believe
YOU could!"

He went out and the next moment Mary was almost smothered in her uncle's
embrace.

"After this--after THIS," roared Shadrach, "I'll believe anything's
possible if you've got a hand in it, Mary-'Gusta. If YOU'D been Jonah
you'd have put the whale in your pocket and swum ashore."

CHAPTER XXVII

Early in April, when Mary announced that she was ready to put into
operation her biggest and most ambitious plan, suggested the year before
by Barbara Howe--the tea-room and gift-shop plan--the Captain did not
offer strenuous opposition.

"I can't see much sense in it," he admitted. "I don't know's I know what
it's all about. Nigh as I can make out you're figgerin' to open up some
kind of a high-toned eatin' house. Is that it?"

"Why, no, Uncle Shad, not exactly," explained Mary.

"Then what is it--a drinkin' house? I presume likely that's it, bein'
as you call it a 'tea-room.' Kind of a temperance saloon, eh? Can't a
feller get coffee in it, if he wants to? I don't wake up nights much
hankerin' for tea myself."

"Listen, Uncle Shad: A tea-room--at least a tearoom of the sort I
intend to have--is a place where the summer people, the women and girls
especially, will come and sit at little tables and drink tea and
eat cakes and ice cream and look off at the ocean, if the weather is
pleasant--"

"Yes, and at the fog, if 'tain't; and talk about their neighbor's
clothes and run down the characters of their best friends. Yes, yes, I
see; sort of a sewin' circle without the sewin'. All right, heave ahead
and get your tea-room off the ways if you want to. If anybody can make
the thing keep afloat you can, Mary-'Gusta."

So Mary, thus encouraged, went on to put her scheme into effect. She
had been planning the details for some time. About halfway down the lane
leadin