"Just a minute. Did they say—did this general impression say why I was givin' up the job?"
"No-o, no, I think not. I believe it was hinted that you were not well and—perhaps somewhat tired—a little discouraged—that sort of thing. As I say, it was mere rumor."
Sears smiled now—that is, his lips smiled, his eyes were grave enough.
"Well," he observed, deliberately, "if you have a chance, Mr. Phillips, you can tell those mere rumorers that I'm not tired at all. My health is better than it has been for months. So far from bein' discouraged, you can tell 'em that—well, you know what Commodore Paul Jones told the British cap'n who asked him to surrender; he told him that he had just begun to fight. That's the way it is with me, Mr. Phillips, I've just begun to fight."
The cane was lifted from the flower bed. Egbert nodded in polite appreciation.
"Really?" he said. "How interesting, Captain!"
Kendrick nodded, also. "Yes, isn't it?" he agreed. "Were you goin' into the Harbor, Phillips? So am I. We'll walk along together."
But that night he went to his bed in better spirits. Egbert's little dig had been the very thing he needed, and now he knew it. He had been discouraged; in spite of his declaration in his letter to Elizabeth Berry, he had wished that it were possible to run away from the Fair Harbor and everything connected with it. But now—now he had no wish of that kind. If Judge Knowles could rise from the grave and bid him quit he would not do it.
Quit? Not much! Like Paul Jones, he had just begun to fight.