"Captain Rumford," said Alec, "there isn't anything I've learned better than the lesson that there are some people I can't trust. And while I've been learning that, I've found that there are some I can."
"Thank you, lad," said the shipper, evidently deeply touched. "Thank you. You can put your mind at rest about your oyster grounds. I'll get them and I'll give you a paper showing that I only hold them in trust for you. And I'll do more. If you don't have the money to pay the expenses, I'll lend it to you and you can pay me whenever you can. But that's because I have confidence in you and not in your oyster grounds."
"Thank you, Captain," said Alec. "It won't be necessary. I have the money."
The captain turned away and went to his desk to make out his application for the desired grounds. But all the way to his chair he kept muttering, "The little fool. He's just throwing his money away."
Having decided the question of his own grounds, Alec turned his attention to the shipper's beds. He spent several days sounding them and studying the water above them. Mostly the captain's beds were well in shore. These he had inherited from his father, who had begun oystering before the shipper was born. These beds were usually very productive. In deep water the captain also owned considerable holdings that he had acquired with profits derived from the beds he had inherited. But none of these had ever proved to be very productive. There was never any very great set of spat in them, and unless they were planted with seed-oysters it hardly paid to dredge them. But, of course, the captain always put seed in all his beds and so he had steadily made some money from them. When Alec analyzed the larval content of the shipper's various beds under the microscope, he found that the shallow water was very rich in spat. The contour of the shore made a vast eddy where these beds lay. The beds farther out were located in the strong current, with not the slightest suspicion of a slick or an eddy near them.
When Alec had concluded his examination of the shipper's beds, he went directly to their owner, though he made a wry face as he thought of what was probably before him.
"Captain Rumford," he said, "I've been working out in your beds for several days. Your shallow water beds are very fine grounds, but——"
"Of course they are. Of course they are. Shallow water's the only proper place for an oyster-bed."
"Your other beds, I was going to say," went on Alec, "are not nearly so good."