"Yes, we've arrived," Mr. Nelson said.
"Glad ye come. Ye'll find everything all ready for ye! 'Mandy has a fire goin', an th' chowder's hot."
"Who is he?" asked Mrs. Nelson, in a whisper.
"Old Tin-Back," replied her husband. "He's a lobsterman and a character. I engaged his wife to clean the cottage, and be here when you arrived."
"Yes, I'm Old Tin-Back," replied the man with a gruff but not unpleasant laugh. "Leastways they all calls me that. I'll take them grips," he went on, as the girls advanced, and into his gnarled hands he gathered the valises.
"Oh, what a delicious smell!" exclaimed Mollie, as they went up the steps.
"That's th' chowder," chuckled the old lobsterman. "I reckoned it'd be tasty. Plenty of quahogs in that."
"What?" gasped Amy.
"Quahogs—big clams, miss," he explained. "Old Tin-Back dug 'em this mornin' at low tide. Nothin' like quahogs for chowder, though some folks likes soft clams. But not for Old Tin-Back."
"Is—is that really your name?" asked Amy.