“Is the island inhabited?” inquired Jimsy; “we’d like to get something to eat.  If there’s a hotel or——.”

The man of the island burst into a laugh.  Not a rough guffaw, but a laugh of genuine amusement.

“I guess I’m the only hotel keeper on the island,” he said, “and my guests is sea gulls and once in a while a turtle.  But if you don’t mind eating some fish and potatoes, you’re welcome to what I have.”

“I’m sure that’s awfully good of you,” said Peggy, warmly, “and we love fish.”

“Well, come on in and sit down.  This fog won’t last forever.  I was chopping wood to get dinner when I heard you coming over the sands.  I don’t often have visitors so you’ll have to rough it.”

So saying, the strange, lone island dweller led them into his hut.  It was rough inside but scrupulously clean.  Some attempts had been made to beautify it by hanging up on the walls shells and curiosities of the beach.  Here and there, too, were panels of rare woods, which the island-dweller explained had come from the cabins of wrecked ships.  A big cat, his only companion, lay beside the fire and blinked at the visitors, as if they were an everyday occurrence.

Chairs, fashioned out of barrels and boxes, stood about, some of them cushioned after a fashion, with sacking stuffed with dried sea weed.

“Sit down,” said their host hospitably, “ain’t much to boast of in the way of furniture, but it’s the best I can do.  Can’t expect to find a Waldorf Hotel on Lost Brig Island.”

“You have been in New York, then?” exclaimed Peggy, struck by the reference.

The man’s face underwent a transformation.

“Once, many years ago,” he said, “but I never like to talk about it.”

“Why not?” blundered the tactless Jimsy.

“Because a wrong—­a very great wrong—­was done to me there,” said the man slowly.

Without another word he rose and left the hut.  None of the visitors dared to speak to him, so black had his face grown at the recollections called up by Peggy’s unlucky remark.

After an absence of some moments he came back.  He carried a string of cleaned fish in one hand and a tin measure of potatoes in the other.  In the interval that had elapsed he seemed to have recovered his equanimity.

“Well, here’s dinner,” he announced in a cheery voice, “it ain’t much to boast of, but hunger’s the best sauce.”

Sitting on an upturned box he started to peel potatoes, and presently put them on the fire in a rough iron pot.  When they were almost done, a fact which he ascertained by prodding them with a clean sliver of wood, he set the fish in a frying pan or “spider,” and the appetizing aroma of the meal presently filled the lowly hut.

On a table formed of big planks, once the hull of some wrecked schooner, laid on rough trestles, they ate, what Peggy afterward declared, was one of the most enjoyable dinners of her life.  Their host had at one time of his life been a sailor it would seem.  At any rate, he had a fund of anecdote of the sea and its perils that held them enthralled.