“How be feelin’?” he asked, putting his head in at the dining-room door.

Mr. Fogo laid down the mallet with which he had been nailing a loose plank in the flooring, and looked up.

“All right, Caleb, thank you.”

“I was afear’d you might be none compass agen.”

“What?”

“None compass—­Greek for ‘mazed.’  Good-bye for the present, sir.”

Caleb borrowed a hammer, a nail or two, and a spade, and descended again to the beach.  Here he chose a spot carefully, and began to dig a large hole in the shingle.  This finished, he turned to the board, and spent some time with the brush in his hand and his head on one side, thinking.  Then he began to paint vigorously.

Half-an-hour later, a tall post with a board on top stood on the beach at Kit’s House.  On the board, in letters six inches long, was tarred the following inscription:—­

TAKE NOTICE.

ALL WIMMEN
FOUND TRAPESING ON THIS
BEECH WILL BE DEALT
WITH ACCORDING
TO THE LAW.

Above this notice jauntily rested the Admiral’s cocked-hat, which had drifted ashore further up on the shingle—­an awful witness to the earnestness of the threat and the vanity of human greatness.

Caleb stood in front of his handiwork and gazed at it with honest pride for some minutes; then went into the house to fetch Mr. Fogo forth to look.  He was absent for some minutes.  When he returned with his master, their eyes were greeted with a curious sight.

On the spit of shingle, and staring open-mouthed at the notice, stood the Twins, their honest faces expressing the extreme of perplexity.  A few yards off the shore, in their boat, waited Tamsin, and leant quietly on her paddles.

[Illustration:  Staring open-mouthed at the notice.]

At the sight of her, Caleb’s face fell a full inch; but he led his master down and planted him resolutely in front of the board.  Mr. Fogo stared helplessly from it to the Twins.

“Mornin’, sir,” said Peter, after a long pause.  His face wore a deepened colour, and he smiled awkwardly.

“Good-morning,” replied Mr. Fogo.

“A fine mornin’,” repeated Peter, with a long gaze at the board, “an’ no mistake.”

There was another long interval, during which everybody stared hard at the Notice.

“’Tes a powerful fine mornin’,” Peter re-asserted very slowly, “ef so be as your station in life es in noways connected with turmuts.  Ef ‘tes the less us says about the mornin’ the better.”  With this observation Peter looked hard at Mr. Fogo, as if the ball of conversation now lay in that gentleman’s hands.

“What do ‘ee think o’ this ’ere Notice?” broke in Caleb.

Paul twitched his yellow bandanna and smiled evasively.

“‘Tes very pretty writin’, sir, sure-ly,” he replied, addressing Mr. Fogo.  “Nice thick down-strokes, an’ all as it shou’d be.”