"Get busy then and find some. How do you manage to live, I want to know?"
"On expectations," Degger rejoined airily.
"Huh! I've seen her. She looks all to the good," Burtwell said coarsely. "Folks rich, I suppose?"
"As cream," admitted the optimistic Degger.
"And you expect to make a killing, Con?"
"I fancy I am not altogether wasting my time," the younger man drawled in a tone that made Tobias want to kick him.
"Well," Burtwell said, "I can't afford to wait forever for the money I had to advance on that motor-boat transaction. I tell you there is a limit to my patience. But there may be a way for you to help me—and yourself—to some of the wherewithal."
The lightkeeper took his packages then and passed the couple on the store porch. He did not glance at Degger, nor did he wait for the fellow to join him at the dock. He got under way in the Marybird and let the boarder exercise his legs on the shell road if he wanted to get back to the Light for supper.
"Something's got to be done," ruminated Tobias, tacking for the cove, in which he moored the sloop hard by the lighthouse. "This here feller may be able to rush Lorny an' tie her up to some contract 'fore she knows what he's about. He seems a'mighty sure of himself.
"I cal'late," pursued the lightkeeper, "that as the angels fear to tread on this matrimonial path—as Heppy says—it's up to me to do so. I ain't going to see little Lorny get stung in no marriage game. Nor yet I don't mean Ralph shall lose all holts. Something's got to be done."