“So Nate and this Harmon feller rowed over to the Bar—­to Ozone Island, I mean—­and the desolation and loneliness of it seemed to suit him to perfection.  So did the old house and big barn and all the tumbledown buildin’s stuck there in the beach-grass and sand.  Afore they’d left they made a dicker.  He wa’n’t the principal in it.  He was the private secretary and fust mate of Mr. Professor Ansel Hobart Dixland, the scientist—­perhaps Scudder’d heard of him?

“Perhaps he had, but if so, Nate forgot it, though he didn’t tell him that.  Harmon ordered a fifteen-foot-high board fence built all around the house and barn, and made Nate swear not to tell a soul who was comin’ nor anything.  Dixland might want the island two months, he said, or he might want it two years.  Nate didn’t care.  He was in for good pickin’s, and begun to pick by slicin’ a liberal commission off that fencebuildin’ job.  There was a whole passel of letters back and forth between Nate and Harmon, and finally Nate got word to meet the victims at the depot.

“There was the professor himself, an old dried-up relic with whiskers and a temper; and there was Miss Olivia Dixland, his niece and housekeeper, a slim, plain lookin’ girl, who wore eyeglasses and a straight up and down dress.  And there was a freight car full of crates and boxes and land knows what all.  But nary sign was there of a private secretary and assistant.  The professor told Nate that Mr. Harmon’s health had suddenly broke down and he’d had to be sent South.

“‘It’s a calamity,’ says he; ’a real calamity!  Harmon has been with me in my work from the beginnin’; and now, just as it is approachin’ completion, he is taken away.  They say he may die.  It is very annoyin’.’

“‘Humph!’ says Nate.  ’Well, maybe it annoys him some, too; you can’t tell.  What you goin’ to do for a secretary?’

“‘I understand,’ says the professor, ’that there is a person of consider’ble scientific attainment residin’ with you, Mr. Scudder, at present.  Harmon met him while he was here; they were in the same class at college.  Harmon recommended him highly.  Olivia,’ he says to the niece, ‘what was the name of the young man whom Harmon recommended?’

“‘Tolliver, Uncle Ansel,’ answers the girl, lookin’ kind of disdainful at Nate.  Somehow he had the notion that she didn’t take to him fust rate.

“‘Hey?’ sings out Nate.  ’Tolliver?  Why, that’s Augustus!  Augustus! well, I’ll be switched!’

“Augustus Tolliver was Nate’s nephew from up Boston way.  Him and Nate was livin’ together at that time.  Huldy Ann, Mrs. Scudder, was out West, in Omaha, takin’ care of a cousin of hers who was a chronic invalid and, what’s more to the purpose, owned a lot of stock in copper mines.