Cap’n Amazon Silt, it seemed, had been everything on sea and land that a mariner could be.  No romance of the sea, or sea-going, was too remarkable to be capped by a tale of one of Cap’n Amazon’s experiences.  Some of these stories of wild and remarkable happenings, the storekeeper had told over and over again until they were threadbare.

Cap’n Abe’s brown, gray-streaked beard swept the breast of his blue jersey.  He was seldom seen without a tarpaulin on his head, and this had made his crown as bare and polished as a shark’s tooth.  Under the bulk of his jersey he might have been either thin or deep-chested, for the observer could not easily judge.  And nobody ever saw the storekeeper’s sleeves rolled up or the throat-latch of his shirt open.

Despite the fact that he held a thriving trade in his store on the Shell Road (especially during the summer season) Cap’n Abe lived emphatically a lonely life.  Twenty years’ residence meant little to Cardhaven folk.  Cap’n Abe was still an outsider to people who were so closely married and intermarried that every human being within five miles of the Haven (not counting the aristocrats of The Beaches) could honestly call each of the others cousin in some degree.

The house and store was set on a lonely stretch of road.  It was unlighted at night, for the last street lamp had been fixed by the town fathers at the Mariner’s Chapel, as though they said to all mundane illumination as did King Canute to the sea, “Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.”

Betty Gallup came cross lots each day to “rid up” Mr. Silt’s living-room, which was behind the store, the chambers being overhead.  She was gone home long before he put out the store lights and turned out the last lingering idler, for Cap’n Abe preferred to cook for himself.  He declared the Widow Gallup did not know how to make a decent chowder, anyway; and as for lobscouse, or the proper frying of a mess of “blood-ends,” she was all at sea.  He intimated that there were digestive reasons for her husband’s death at the early age of sixty-eight.

Milt Baker had successfully introduced another topic of conversation, far removed it would seem from any adventurous happening connected with Cap’n Amazon Silt’s career.

“I hear tell,” said Milt, chewing Brown Mule with gusto, “that them folks cavortin’ down on The Beaches for a week past is movin’ picture actors.  That so, Lawford?”

“There’s a camera man and a director, and several handy men arrived,” the son of the Salt Water Taffy King replied.  “They are going to use Bozewell’s house for some pictures.  The Bozewells are in Europe.”

“But ain’t none of the actorines come?” demanded Milt, who was a sad dog—­let him tell it!  He had been motorman on a street car in Providence for a couple of winters before he married Mandy Card, and now tried to keep green his reputation for sophistication.

“I believe not,” Lawford answered, with reflection.  “I presume the company will come later.  The director is taking what he calls ‘stills’ of the several localities they propose using when the films are really made.”