“I—I don't know.”
“Well, what's your folks goin' to have to eat this mornin'?”
Issy admitted his belief that fried clams were to be the breakfast.
“So? Clams? Is, did you ever read the soap advertisement about not bein' a clam?”
“I—I don't know's I ever did. No, sir.”
“All right; I only called your attention to it as a warnin', that's all. When anybody eats as many clams as you do there's a fair chance of his turnin' into one. Now clear out, and don't stay so long at breakfast that you can't get back in time for dinner. Trot!”
Issy trotted. The depot master seated himself by the door of the ticket office and fell into a reverie. It was interrupted by the entrance of Hiram Baker. Captain Hiram was an ex-fishing skipper, fifty-five years of age, who, with his wife, Sophronia, and their infant son, Hiram Joash Baker, lived in a small, old-fashioned house at the other end of the village, near the shore. Captain Hiram, having retired from the sea, got his living, such as it was, from his string of fish traps, or “weirs.”
The depot master hailed the new arrival heartily.
“Hello, there, Hiram!” he cried, rising from his chair. “Glad to see you once in a while. Ain't goin' to leave us, are you? Not goin' abroad for your health, or anything of that kind, hey?”
Captain Baker laughed.