"So am I," he returned cheerfully. "I know you'll fix things up all right. I think I'll just wander down the island now, and find Benny Merritt and see if he was her boatman. Cheer up, Edna. I know you can get whatever you want out of Judge Trent, and by this time to-morrow night everything will be going as merry as a marriage bell."
A shrewd guess helped Dunham to find the object of his search at the post office, where Benny was seated on a barrel, pensively kicking his heels. Dissembling his eagerness, John nodded a greeting in his direction, and, passing over to the corner of the grocery sacred to the Government pigeonholes, asked for the Derwent mail.
The portly wife of the postmaster replied that the evening boat was late and that they were waiting for the mail.
John accepted this information with proper surprise, and, turning away, looked through the window at the lights on a swordfisher standing in the cove. He thought he would first give Benny the chance to volunteer information.
He had already found that moments spent in the island grocery yielded rich returns in diversion. It was, in the first place, cause for rejoicing that the amiable but chronically weary proprietor of the island emporium, and his too substantial spouse, should be named Frisk.
While John stood there a girl came in and stumbled toward the post office window. "Have ye shet up the mail bag yet, Mis' Frisk? I want to git this package in if I possibly can. How much goes on it?"
"I'll have to see," returned the portly one, waddling out to where the grocery scales stood on the counter. By the light of the kerosene lamp she leaned over and examined the figures.
"'M. Weighs jest two pounds," she announced.
The girl looked bewildered. "Why, they ain't but two handkerchiefs in there, Mis' Frisk. I don't see how it could"—
"Hey?" deliberately. "Two handkerchiefs? Let's see." Another examination. "Oh, ye-us," wearily. "My stomach was on the scales."