“You’re not going to taste of fish to-night,” stated Teddy.
“Waal, that won’t be no loss,” grinned Mark delightedly. “I eat so much fish that I’m expectin’ almost any minnit I’ll be sproutin’ fins an’ gills.”
“This treat is all on us,” affirmed Fred, “and all you have to do is to fill up on what you see before you and tell us what you think of our cook.”
“I’ll do that right enough,” said Mark, “an’ ef it tastes as good as it smells an’ looks, there ain’t one of you youngsters that will stow away more than I kin.”
They installed him at the head of the table in the one chair that the cabin boasted, while they disposed themselves around on boxes and whatever else would serve as seats. Their surroundings were of the rudest kind but the fare was ample and their appetites keen and there was an atmosphere of mirth and high spirits that made full amends for whatever was lacking in the way of what Teddy called frills. Mark renewed his youth in the unaccustomed company of so many young lads, and ate as he had not eaten for many a day or year.
They did not broach the object of their visit until the meal was finished and the remnants cleared 162 away. Then they adjourned to the beach in front of the cabin, where Mark filled his pipe and tilted back in his chair against the front of the shack, while the boys threw themselves down on the sand around him.
“Well, Mark,” began Lester, when, with his pipe drawing well, the old fisherman beamed on them all in rare good humor, “I suppose you’ve been wondering what we mean by coming down and taking you by storm in this way.”
“I’d like ter be taken by storm that way a mighty sight oftener than I be,” returned Mark. “But sence yer speak of it, I am a leetle mite curious as ter what yer wanted with an old fisherman like me.”
“It’s about something that happened nine or ten years ago,” went on Lester. “Do you remember the time you picked up a man in an open boat off this coast somewhere?”
Mark was attentive in an instant.