Once under cover he pulled off the new reefer, wrapped it around the board, and began to run, never pausing until he gained the boat house.
Throwing open the door he quickly stripped off the new stiff, confining garments, and slipped eel-like into loose trousers and the gray sweater that made him one with the seaweed and the sands. Then drawing the old soft hat well down to his very eyes he opened the tool chest that stood under the window and, taking therefrom gimlet, screw eyes, and hooks, he mounted an empty box, and proceeded to fasten the sign he had brought over the door. When it hung exactly even and to his liking, he walked backward, slowly surveying his handiwork, talking to the dog meanwhile. “What do you think of that, Maje? You and me hev got a business, we hev! employment with a name to it! Don’t yer remember what she said? No, you wasn’t the dog, though; ’twere old Dave, yer granddad! There’ll be jest two o’ us in the business, man and dog. You know the saying as two’s a company. Onct maybe I’d chose a woman partner! when they’re young wimmen’s prettier, but fer age give me er dog! Dogs is more dependable, likewise they don’t talk back, eh, Maje?”
On the swinging white board, edged with bright blue, in blue letters he read these words aloud, slowly, and with deep-drawn satisfaction:—
THE MARKIS AND THE MAJOR.
Decoys and Fishing Tackle to Rent.
Sailing, Gunning, Fishing and Retrieving done with Neatness
and Dispatch.
Reëntering the boat house he gazed about with a sigh of perfect content, dropped into the ship-shaped bunk that was his bed, hat still on his head, and stretching himself luxuriously, said to the Major, who crouched beside, “I reckoned we’d hev ter make a change long first o’ the year, and I reckon we hev!” The coffee-pot upon the new stove in the far corner brooded comfortably and gave little gasps before being fully minded to excite itself to boiling, while the wild blood, even a few drops of which often makes its owners think such long, long thoughts that stretch back to the dawn of things, coursed evenly on its way until a delicious sleep, such as had been unknown for months, laid its fingers on the eyelids of the Markis.
Cautiously the Major rose to his feet, looked about the room narrowly, sniffed the floor and then the air, shook his head and pawed persistently until the heavy new collar slipped over his ears and clattered to the floor. For a moment, minded to lie down again, he paused, sniffed the fresh air from the open window in the corner, then lifting the offending collar carefully in his mouth he gripped it firmly and crossed the room, jumped for the open sash, missed, tried again, and disappeared in the boat house shadows.
A loon laughed far out on the water, and the Major trembled guiltily. Gaining the beach crest he kept on to tide-water mark, where, digging deep, he buried the offending bit of leather, covering it well, kicking backward at it, dog fashion, with snorts of contemptuous satisfaction. Then trotting gaily back he entered by the window, and soon two rhythmic snores, added to the bubbling of the overboiling coffee-pot, told that the Markis and the Major slept the peaceful winter sleep, while the sharp crescent moon of January slipped past the window, lingering over still-water to cover the bedded wild-fowl with a silver sheet.