I sighed and laughed. "I will," I said, "but I can't get them this minute. Will nothing less satisfy you? You sit here, and I'll go and see how the clams are getting on. I will bring you one."
She was on the verge of tears. "I was going to see how the clams were myself. Dig 'em with a stick. I can find 'em. I've found lots."
"What do you do with them when you've found them?"
"We play with 'em, and we had a clambake once."
"Were the clams good?"
"Pretty good. There were six of 'em, one apiece and two for Ann. But she didn't eat hers. She said they weren't done, and that she wasn't a fish to eat raw clams. Oh, look, daddy!"
Old Goodwin's ocean steamer was lying at her anchor, but I could see nothing unusual about her.
"No," said Tidda, "not grandpa's, but out that way. Is it coming in here? It comes fast, doesn't it?"
Set right by Tidda's pointing finger, I saw the steamer, but I could not make out what she was, whether yacht or war vessel. She had the lines of a torpedo boat, and was painted gray, with lines of bull's-eyes along her sides, and no deck to speak of, where one could sit in comfort; but plainly she was no torpedo boat, and as plainly she was not a steam yacht of the common type. She was nearly two hundred feet long, I judged, and of great speed.
"It is coming here," cried Tidda in some excitement. "See! It's going close to grandpa's."