Elsa's face grew scarlet. "Oh! Alec," she cried, "I don't want you to think I meant what I said—that is, not in the way it sounded. And if you don't take back what you just said, I'll never talk to you again."
"I'll take it all back," said Alec, "just as Galileo took back his assertion about the earth's turning round."
"How was that?" demanded Elsa.
"That's for you to find out," laughed Alec, and he would not tell her.
Soon they were in the open Bay. "Even if I do need to study all the oyster grounds," said Alec, "I'm going to begin on the unstaked areas."
"Of course. You may find grounds as good there as any in the Cove. Then you could get them direct from the state, at a minimum cost."
Alec spread out the map of the oyster-beds he had borrowed from Captain Bagley. "We'll begin here," he said, "and work straight offshore. Are you going to help me or just watch me?"
"Help you, of course. If I couldn't be of any more use than a phonograph, there wasn't much sense in my coming."
"Then suppose you take soundings and test with this salinometer. The instrument will give you the density of the water, and the thermometer in the bulb will register the temperature. I've made several copies of this map of the oyster-beds, and we'll mark our position with a cross and write down beside it whatever we find. While you are doing that, I'll be testing for larvæ."