The lobster boat came alongside, and a very much relieved fisherman looked up at the trim yacht.
"Hum, that's quite some of a smack," he remarked with calm enthusiasm. "I'm right glad I met-up with you. I calculated I'd have t' stay out all night, or until the fog lifted, an' that ain't goin' to be very soon. Has any one a chaw of tobacco?"
"Was that you singin'?" demanded Widdy, suspiciously, while one of the crew, at Captain Barton's direction, went to get some gasolene.
"Well, if you call it singin' I was," guardedly answered the lobster man.
"Why and wherefore was you a-doin' of it?" inquired the wooden-legged sailor. "I took you for a mermaid, an'——"
"A mermaid! Ho! Ho! A bloomin' mermaid I'd make! Why I was only a sort of hummin' to myself because I'd lost my fog horn overboard, an' I didn't want to be run down, with all these lobsters aboard, for lobsters is high now. That's why I was sort of hummin' an' singin', as you call it. Has any one got a chaw of tobacco?"
"Well, seein' as how you're not a mermaid, you can have it," responded Widdy, as he passed over a generous portion. "But it's the first time I ever heard of a lobsterman losin' his fog horn overboard. Some careless of you, wa'n't it?"
"You might call it that," admitted the other, cautiously, "but I was so busy haulin' up my pots an' emptyin' 'em that I didn't notice it right away, an' you know," he added gravely, "a horn won't float."
"Hum," remarked Widdy, as he took back what was left of the plug of tobacco. The gasolene was handed down into the small craft, and the lobsterman insisted on giving Dick a generous portion of his catch in payment therefor.
"Ho, for some lobster salad!" cried the young millionaire, as he held up by the back a squirming crustacean. "Hans, get busy making about a peck of mayonnaise dressing."