"Now what?" Tom, who had thrown himself full length on the pier, asked with mild curiosity, being so nearly exhausted that he could not display a very lively interest in anything.
"I reckon he's gone to tell the folks what's been done. We'll have to wait here."
"That's jest what I want to do, an' he needn't hurry back on my account, for I could stay right where I am till mornin' an' not fret myself very much."
There was little need for the boys to speculate as to the reason for Mr. Mansfield's sudden departure. He returned within five minutes and at once began to ask many questions, to all of which Sam replied as well as he was able; but before having given any great amount of information his eyes closed in sleep, despite all his efforts to keep them open, and the shopkeeper exclaimed in a tone of self-reproach:
"I come mighty nigh bein' a brute to keep you here talkin', when, 'cordin' to what's been said, you must have been workin' like beavers since before daybreak. Toddle up to my house an' go to bed. There ain't any chance Uncle Ben can get back within the next four an' twenty hours."
Not only did Mr. Mansfield provide them with a bed, but his wife insisted on their eating a hearty meal before lying down, and when, finally, the two lads had an opportunity to crawl between the lavender-scented sheets, Tom said with a sigh of content:
"It pays to get awfully tired, jest for the sake of findin' out how nice it is to go to bed."
Then it was as if he had dropped into dreamland on the instant, for the words were hardly more than out of his mouth before he was breathing heavily. And Sam did not have time to realize the condition of his comrade, for he himself was lost in the blissful unconsciousness of slumber.
Not until the sun had been looking in at the chamber window of Mr. Mansfield's house a full hour did the boys realize where they were, and then Sam jumped out of bed as he cried:
"Just think of it, Tom, after all our work to get the lobsters here, we left them in the dory all night, an' it'll be the biggest kind of luck if any of 'em are alive now!"