Dab Kinzer drew a long, astonished sort of whistle, but he finished it with, "That's about what I was thinking of. There's plenty of crabs, and I've got a tip-top boat. We wont want a heavy one for just us two."
"All right, then. We'll begin on crabs; but some other day we'll go for bigger fish. What are you going to do next week?"
"Got it all to myself," said Dab. "We can have all sorts of a good time. We can have the ponies, too, when we want them."
"That's about as good as it knows how to be," responded the young gentleman from the city. "I'd like to explore the country. You're going to have a nice place of it over there, before you get through. Only, if I'd had the planning of that house, I'd have set it back further. Not enough trees, either."
Bab came stoutly to the defense of not only that house, but of Long Island architecture generally, and was fairly overwhelmed, for the first time in his life, by a flood of big words from a boy of his own age.
He could have eaten up Ford Foster, if properly cooked. He felt sure of that. But he was no match for him on the building question. On his way home, however, after the discussion had lasted long enough, he found himself inquiring: "That's all very nice, but what can he teach me about crabs? We'll see about that to-morrow."
The crab question was one of special importance, beyond a doubt; but one of even greater consequence to Dab Kinzer's future was undergoing discussion at that very hour, hundreds of miles away.
Quite a little knot of people there was, in a hotel parlor; and while the blooming Miranda, now Mrs. Morris, was taking her share of talk very well with the ladies, Ham was every bit as busy with a couple of elderly gentlemen.
"It's just as I say, Mr. Morris," said one of the latter, with a superfluous show of energy; "there's no better institution of its kind in the country than Grantley Academy. I send my own boys there, and I've just written about it to my brother-in-law, Foster, the New York lawyer. He'll have his boy there this fall. No better place in the country, sir."
"But how about the expenses, Mr. Hart?" asked Ham.