The Breakers stood on a strip of land between the bay and the ocean. It was on a peninsula, but the connecting link with the mainland was many miles away, so that for all practical purposes the house was on an island, with the ocean in front and the bay behind, and all the pleasures that both made possible.
Anne was entranced with the delights of crabbing. It was very exciting to get the great rusty fellows on the line, tow them up to the top of the water, where the competent Perkins nabbed them with the crab-net.
Perkins caught crabs as he did everything else, expertly, and with dignity. His only concession to the informality of the sport was a white yachting cap and a white linen coat, and it was a sight worth going miles to see, to watch him officiate at a catch. The great vicious fellows might clash their claws in vain, for Perkins subdued them with a scientific clutch at the back that rendered them helpless.
"We are going to cook them as soon as we get home," Judy told Anne. "Perkins knows all about fixing them, and Mrs. Adams is going to give up the kitchen to us—it's lots of fun to eat the meat out of the claws."
"Do you want them—devilled, Miss?" and Perkins coughed discreetly before the word.
"Yes. In their shells, with parsley stuck in the top. They are delicious that way, Anne."
Anne had her doubts as to the deliciousness of anything so spidery-looking as those strange fish, but she said nothing.
"Is there anything Perkins can't do?" she asked Judy, as Perkins went on ahead, bearing the great basket of crabs, and the net.
"I don't believe there is," laughed Judy. "He is supposed to be grandfather's butler, but he won't let any one do a thing for grandfather, and he plays valet and cook half the time when the other servants don't suit him."
Once in the kitchen, Anne eyed the big basket shiveringly. The fierce creatures stared at her with protruding bead-like eyes, and in a way that seemed positively menacing.