But it rained the next day, and after that they went sailing in Judy’s own sailboat “The Princess,” which she could manage as well as any man, and after that they drove to town with the Judge, so that it was over a week before the crabbing expedition came to pass.

The Breakers stood on a strip of land between the bay and the ocean.  It was on a peninsula, but the connecting link with the mainland was many miles away, so that for all practical purposes the house was on an island, with the ocean in front and the bay behind, and all the pleasures that both made possible.

Anne was entranced with the delights of crabbing.  It was very exciting to get the great rusty fellows on the line, tow them up to the top of the water, where the competent Perkins nabbed them with the crab-net.

Perkins caught crabs as he did everything else, expertly, and with dignity.  His only concession to the informality of the sport was a white yachting cap and a white linen coat, and it was a sight worth going miles to see, to watch him officiate at a catch.  The great vicious fellows might clash their claws in vain, for Perkins subdued them with a scientific clutch at the back that rendered them helpless.

“We are going to cook them as soon as we get home,” Judy told Anne.  “Perkins knows all about fixing them, and Mrs. Adams is going to give up the kitchen to us—­it’s lots of fun to eat the meat out of the claws.”

“Do you want them—­devilled, Miss?” and Perkins coughed discreetly before the word.

“Yes.  In their shells, with parsley stuck in the top.  They are delicious that way, Anne.”

Anne had her doubts as to the deliciousness of anything so spidery-looking as those strange fish, but she said nothing.

“Is there anything Perkins can’t do?” she asked Judy, as Perkins went on ahead, bearing the great basket of crabs, and the net.

“I don’t believe there is,” laughed Judy.  “He is supposed to be grandfather’s butler, but he won’t let any one do a thing for grandfather, and he plays valet and cook half the time when the other servants don’t suit him.”

Once in the kitchen, Anne eyed the big basket shiveringly.  The fierce creatures stared at her with protruding bead-like eyes, and in a way that seemed positively menacing.

“If they should get out,” she thought, as she was left alone with them for a moment.

She never knew how it happened, but Perkins must have left the basket too near the edge of the chair on which he had placed it, for as she took hold of the cover to shut it, the basket tipped, and down came the living load, and in another moment, the desperate shell-fish were scuttling across the floor in all directions.

With a shriek Anne took refuge on top of the stationary wash-tubs.

“Come up here, Judy,” she cried, frantically, and Judy who had reached the middle of the room, and was surrounded by pugilistic creatures before she realized the catastrophe, drew herself up beside Anne, and together they shrieked for Perkins.