“Fine boat you’ve got there,” said the stranger—evidently from the city.
“She’s pretty good, if I do say it,” replied Squire Brackett, swelling out his chest and looking nautical.
“Looks as though she might carry sail some,” continued the stranger, admiringly.
“Ha!” exclaimed the squire. “The harder it blows the better we like it. My men say to me, time and time again, ‘Most too much wind, Captain Brackett; better reef, hadn’t we?’ ‘Not much,’ is what I say. ‘Let a topsail go if it wants to. I’ll buy another when that’s gone. Keep her down to her work. She’ll stand it.’ What’s the use of having a good boat if you keep her in a glass case, eh, sir?”
“Well, I suppose that’s so,” replied the stranger, much impressed. “But you’ve got to have the nerve to do it.”
“It’s nothing when you’re accustomed to it,” said Squire Brackett, taking a nautical survey of the sky, and rolling toward the companionway like an old salt.
Before he began operations, however, he returned on deck, took the bow-line and drew the yacht close in to the pier, stepped off and cast loose the end of the line where it was made fast to a spiling. There was another line out astern, to which an anchor was attached, and which had been dropped at some distance from the boat. This was to keep the yacht from getting in too snug to the pier and scraping the paint from its sides. The squire took hold of this rope and drew the yacht out farther from the pier, so that no one could step aboard from there.
Thus safe from interruption, he again went below and sprang breathlessly to the drawer.
“Here’s the third starboard locker from the bow,” he muttered. “‘Money is still aboard yacht,’ eh? Ha! ha! I’ll show ’em a thing or two. He didn’t intend to buy my land—the rascal. Well, I’ll get his treasure. They will run down my sailboat, will they? Well, I’ll pull a prize out of their own boat. They’re a smart lot, the whole of them; but I’ll show ’em who’s smarter.”
Squire Brackett’s hand shook with excitement as he drew out the large drawer.