Now isn't that the dickens! Well, no matter, Ma; I'll swab
the place down again when I've finished cleaning these fish. They're
beauties, aren't they? A batch of them fried won't go bad for supper
to-night. I'm hungry as a bear. Shouldn't think I'd eaten anything in
ten years. Say, Ma, what do you s'pose? Dave Corbett was out in the
_Nancy_ three hours and never got a bite. What do you think of that?
The wind died down, his engine got stalled, and he and Hosey Talbot
had to row home from the Bell Reef Shoals. Haw, haw! Maybe I didn't
roar when I saw them come pulling in against the tide, mad as two
man-eating sharks. Fit to harpoon the first person they met, they
were. I sung out and asked them were they practicing for the Harvard
and Yale boat race and Dave was that peeved he shied an oarlock after
me. Haw, haw, haw!"

"You ought not to provoke Dave, Walter."

"Provoke him? But he was provoked already, Ma. There's no harm
putting an extra stick on the fire when it's burning, anyhow. Besides,
Dave is never in earnest when he bawls me out. He just likes to hear
himself scold."

"He has a terrible temper."

"Oh, I know half the town is scart to death of him. But he always will
take a jolly from me. We understand each other, Dave and I. Say, Ma,
these rubber boots leak. Did you know that? Yes, siree! They leak like
sieves. I might as well be without 'em."

Mrs. King sighed.

"I don't see," murmured she, "how you manage to go through everything
you have so quickly, Walter. Nothing you wear lasts you more than a
week."

"Oh, I say, make it a month. Do, now!"

He saw his mother smile faintly.

"Well, a month then."

"You couldn't stretch it to two?"

"Not possibly. Four weeks seems to be your limit."

The sharpness of her tone, however, had weakened.

"Four weeks, eh? I did think I'd had these rubber boots longer than
that. It is amazing how attached you can get to things even in a
little while."

Holding aloft the knife with which he was preparing to behead the
unlucky flounders, His Highness gazed reflectively down at his feet.

"It's awful that I have to keep having so many things, isn't it? I
hate to be costing you money all the time. Now if you'd only let me
ship for the Grand Banks when the _Katie B._ goes out----"

"Walter! What is the use of digging up that old bone again? I never
shall let you ship for the Grand Banks or any other Banks so long as I
live. We've had this out hundreds of times bef