“Looking for a boat to come along and take you for a sail?” he said. “It’s a long walk to town.”
“You’d better be on your way then,” the man retorted. His tone was not very civil, and it made David flush.
“I can look out for myself.”
“Oh, you can, can you?” The man turned round and glared at the young fellow. “Well, my advice to you is to make yourself scarce pretty quick.”
David squared his shoulders. “You don’t want me and my friends round here, do you? A person might think you owned the beach.”
“No,” said the man, “I don’t want you round here.” He looked at the boy fixedly for a minute. “That’s plain enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s plain enough,” David admitted. “But I don’t see that it’s any reason why we should go.”
“I’ve business here, and you haven’t.”
“Business? You don’t seem very busy.”
The man got up from the log and walked away, down the beach toward a ledge of rock that shut off the southern end.