“Me and Jonadab argued it out with Peter, and finally we met halfway, so’s to speak.  We wouldn’t keep the whole shebang open, but we’d shut up everything but one Annex cottage, and advertise that as a Gunner’s Retreat.  So we done it.

“And it worked.  Heavens to Betsy—­yes!  It worked so well that by the second week in September we had to open t’other Annex.  The gunnin’ was bad, but Peter’s ads fetched the would-be’s, and his ‘excursions’ and picnics and the football team held ’em.  The football team especial.  Parker cap’ned that, and, from the gunnin’ crew and the waiters and some fishermen in the village, he dug up an eleven that showed symptoms of playin’ the game.  We played the Trumet High School, and beat it, thanks to Parker, and that tickled Pa Robinson so that he bought a two-handled silver soup tureen—­’lovin’ cup,’ he called it—­and agreed to give it to the team round about that won the most of the series.  So the series was arranged, the Old Home House crowd and the Wapatomac House eleven and three high-school gangs bein’ in it.  And ’twas practice, practice, practice, from then on.

“When we opened the second Annex, the question of help got serious.  Most of our college waiters had gone back to school, and we was pretty shy of servants.  So we put some extry advertisin’ in the Cape weeklies, and trusted in Providence.

“The evenin’ followin’ the ad in the weeklies, I was settin’ smokin’ on the back piazza of the shut-up main hotel, when I heard the gate click and somebody crunchin’ along the clam-shell path.  I sung out:  ’Ahoy, there!’ and the cruncher, whoever he was, come my way.  Then I made out that he was a tall young chap, with his hands in his pockets.

“‘Good evenin’,’ says he.  ‘Is this Mr. Brown?’

“‘Thankin’ you for the compliment, it ain’t,’ I says.  ’My name’s Wingate.’

“‘Oh!’ says he.  ’Is that so?  I’ve heard father speak of you, Mr. Wingate.  He is Solomon Bearse, of West Ostable.  I think you know him slightly.’

“Know him?  Everybody on the Cape knows Sol Bearse; by reputation, anyhow.  He’s the richest, meanest old cranberry grower and coastin’-fleet owner in these parts.

“‘Is Sol Bearse your dad?’ I asks, astonished.  ’Why, then, you must be Gus?’

“‘No,’ he says.  ‘I’m the other one—­Fred.’

“‘Oh, the college one.  The one who’s goin’ to be a lawyer.’

“‘Well, yes—­and no,’ says he.  ’I was the college one, as you call it, but I’m not goin’ to be a lawyer.  Father and I have had some talk on that subject, and I think we’ve settled it.  I—­well, just at present, I’m not sure what I’m goin’ to be.  That’s what I’ve come to you for.  I saw your ad in the Item, and—­I want a job.’

“I was set all aback, and left with my canvas flappin’, as you might say.  Sol Bearse’s boy huntin’ a job in a hotel kitchen!  Soon’s I could fetch a whole breath, I wanted partic’lars.  He give ’em to me.