ere along
with Sol Pratt a year or so ago, re-christened it 'Ozone Island,' you
remember. Nate was willin' to let it. He'd let Tophet, if he owned it,
and a fool come along who wanted to hire it and could pay for the rent
and heat.

"So Nate and this Harmon feller rowed over to the Bar--to Ozone Island,
I mean--and the desolation and loneliness of it seemed to suit him to
perfection. So did the old house and big barn and all the tumbledown
buildin's stuck there in the beach-grass and sand. Afore they'd left
they made a dicker. He wa'n't the principal in it. He was the private
secretary and fust mate of Mr. Professor Ansel Hobart Dixland, the
scientist--perhaps Scudder'd heard of him?

"Perhaps he had, but if so, Nate forgot it, though he didn't tell him
that. Harmon ordered a fifteen-foot-high board fence built all around
the house and barn, and made Nate swear not to tell a soul who was
comin' nor anything. Dixland might want the island two months, he said,
or he might want it two years. Nate didn't care. He was in for good
pickin's, and begun to pick by slicin' a liberal commission off that
fencebuildin' job. There was a whole passel of letters back and forth
between Nate and Harmon, and finally Nate got word to meet the victims
at the depot.

"There was the professor himself, an old dried-up relic with whiskers
and a temper; and there was Miss Olivia Dixland, his niece and
housekeeper, a slim, plain lookin' girl, who wore eyeglasses and a
straight up and down dress. And there was a freight car full of crates
and boxes and land knows what all. But nary sign was there of a private
secretary and assistant. The professor told Nate that Mr. Harmon's
health had suddenly broke down and he'd had to be sent South.

"'It's a calamity,' says he; 'a real calamity! Harmon has been with
me in my work from the beginnin'; and now, just as it is approachin'
completion, he is taken away. They say he may die. It is very annoyin'.'

"'Humph!' says Nate. 'Well, maybe it annoys HIM some, too; you can't
tell. What you goin' to do for a secretary?'

"'I understand,' says the professor, 'that there is a person of
consider'ble scientific attainment residin' with you, Mr. Scudder, at
present. Harmon met him while he was here; they were in the same class
at college. Harmon recommended him highly. Olivia,' he says to the
niece, 'what was the name of the young man whom Harmon recommended?'

"'Tolliver, Uncle Ansel,' answers the girl, look