The visitor tugged at his beard.
"Look here, Judge Knowles," he said crisply, "what are you talkin' about? What's the joke?"
"It isn't a joke."
"Well, then what is it? You'll have to give me my bearin's, I'm lost in the fog. Do I understand you to mean that you are offerin' me a berth, a job where I can earn—no, I won't put it that way, where I will be paid fifteen hundred a year?"
"I am, and," with another sardonic chuckle, "I rather think you'll earn all you get. Of course fifteen hundred dollars a year isn't a large salary, it isn't a sea captain's wage and share—not such a captain as you've been, Kendrick. But, as I see it, you can't go to sea for a year or two at least. You are planning to stay right here in Bayport. Well, while you are here this thing I am offering you will," there was another chuckle, "keep you moderately busy, and you will be earning something. It may be that fifteen hundred won't be enough to be worth your while. Perhaps I shouldn't venture to offer it if I hadn't heard—hadn't heard——"
Sears interrupted.
"What you heard was probably true," he said crisply. "True enough, at any rate. Fifteen hundred a year looks like a lot to me now. But what am I to do to get it, that's the question. I'm a cripple, don't forget that."
"I should remember it if I thought it necessary. You won't handle this job with your legs. It is your head I want. Cap'n Kendrick, I want you to take charge—take command, if you had rather we used seafaring lingo, of that establishment next door to where you are living now. I want you to act as—well, we'll call it captain of the Fair Harbor."
Captain Sears's eyes and mouth opened. His chair creaked as he leaned forward and then slowly leaned back again.
"You—you—" he gasped, "you want me to—to manage that—that old women's home?"