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 back to his new 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.”

Beyond a doubt, the crab question was of special importance; but one of far 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.

“Fees are just what I told you, sir, a mere nothing.  As for board, all I pay for my boys is three dollars a week.  All they want to eat, sir, and good accommodations.  Happy as larks, sir, all the time.  Cheap, sir, cheap.”

If Ham Morris had the slightest idea of going to school at a New-England academy, Miranda’s place in the improved house was likely to wait for her; for he had a look on his face of being very nearly convinced.

She did not seem at all disturbed, however; and probably she knew that her husband was not taking up the school question on his own account.

Nevertheless, that was the reason why it might have been interesting for Dab Kinzer, and even for his knowing neighbor, to have added themselves to the company Ham and Miranda had fallen in with on their wedding-tour.

Both of the boys had a different kind of thinking on hand; and that night Dab dreamed that a gigantic crab was trying to pull Ford Foster out of the boat, while the latter calmly remarked to him,—­

“There, my young friend, did you ever see anything just like that before?”

CHAPTER VI.

CRABS, BOYS, AND A BOAT-WRECK.

That Saturday morning was a sad one for poor Dick Lee.

His mother, the previous night, carefully locked up his elegant apparel, the gift of Mr. Dabney Kinzer.  It was done after Dick was in bed; and, when daylight came again, he found only his old clothes by the bedside.

It was a hard thing to bear, no doubt; but Dick had been a bad boy on Friday.  He had sold his fish instead of bringing them home, and then had gone and squandered the money on a brilliant new red necktie.