"Elsa," Alec had said, "I guess we are all fools at times. I had this thing all thought out in my mind and my decision made; but when it came to paying seventy-five dollars just to find out something, I hadn't the courage to do it. You don't know how big seventy-five dollars looks to me."
"Silly!" Elsa had replied. "Don't talk to me about lacking courage, when you make a practice of jumping overboard to fish drowning men out of the water. It isn't courage you lack. It's partnership. If you had somebody to back you up, you'd never hesitate a second about this thing."
"Where did you learn so much?" Alec had answered, with genuine admiration in his glance. "Do you know that's exactly what I need, and I never before knew what it was that was wrong."
"Well, don't you let it worry you any longer, Alec," Elsa had replied. "I understand you and what you are trying to do, and I think it's just fine. And I'll stand back of you no matter what they say. I know Dad will think you are foolish. He thinks anything new is foolish. But never you mind. You just go ahead with your plans."
"That settles it," Alec had replied. "I am going ahead, no matter if it costs twice seventy-five dollars. I'm going to find out the truth at any cost. Why, if a fellow doesn't know the truth, he's like a man who doesn't know how to get to the place he's trying to reach. He may be walking in the wrong direction. It wouldn't do him much good if he was a good walker, would it? And just think how near I came to being a dummy like that myself—all for the sake of seventy-five dollars!"
So the matter had been settled for good, and Alec had ordered the articles, even laughing when it took almost his last cent to pay for them. Now he had them at hand, and he was almost ready to begin his search for the truth—the truth about the oyster fry.
He lacked only a boat. At first he thought he would buy a boat, but when he found that the kind of boat he wanted, fitted with a good motor, roofed over forward so as to make a little cabin, would cost several hundred dollars, and take every cent he had made in his shell business, he decided that he would rent a boat instead.
There was just such a boat as he wanted, for hire. It was about twenty-five feet long, with a snug yet roomy cabin forward, a single sail, which he could easily manage, and in the cockpit was a small motor, neatly boxed in to protect it from the weather. The boxing could be removed if one wished to run the engine. Alec secured the craft for a reasonable sum, put his scientific outfit aboard, brought his clothes and some bedding, and stocked the larder with sufficient provisions. Nor did he forget his wireless outfit. The Bertha B, like all other oyster craft, was to be overhauled during the summer, and be repaired and repainted. Of necessity, Alec's wireless would have to be taken down and he had already dismantled it and stowed it in a box before finding the little sloop. Now he had only to carry his box aboard, and his little craft was ready to sail.
The process of making ready went along merrily enough, but when it came to sailing away, a trip all by himself suddenly lost its attractiveness. Alec turned the situation over in his mind for some time.
Then he went to his partner in the shell business. "Jim," he said, "I'm going out to the Bay in a little sloop I've hired, to study oyster larvæ. Don't you want to go along?"