“No.  Brown! the idea!  Red, of course.  He’s green when you put him in the kittle, and when you take him out, he’s red.  That’s one way you can tell.”

“Yes, that will help some.  All right, I’ll boil him till he’s red, you needn’t worry about that.”

“Oh, I sha’n’t worry.  So long.  I’ll be back about six or so.  Put him in when the water’s good and hot, and you’ll come out all right.”

“Thank you.  I hope he will, but I have my doubts.  Where is he?”

“Who? the lobster?  There’s dozens down in the car by the wharf.  Lift the cover and fish one out with the dip net.  Pick out the biggest one you can find, ’cause I’m likely to be hungry when I get back, and your appetite ain’t a hummin’ bird’s.  There!  I’ve got to go if I want to get anything done afore—­ . . .  Humph! never mind.  So long.”

He hurried away, as if conscious that he had said more than he intended.  At the corner of the house he turned to call: 

“I say!  Brown! be kind of careful when you dip him out.  None of ’em are plugged.”

“What?”

“I say none of them lobsters’ claws are plugged.  I didn’t have time to plug the last lot I got from my pots, so you want to handle ’em careful like, else they’ll nip you.  Tote the one you pick out up to the house in the dip-net; then you’ll be all right.”

Evidently considering this warning sufficient to prevent any possible trouble, he departed.  John Brown seated himself in the armchair by the door and gazed at the sea.  He gazed and thought until he could bear to think no longer; then he rose and entered the kitchen, where he kindled a fire in the range and filled a kettle with water.  Having thus made ready the sacrificial altar, he took the long-handled dip-net from its nail and descended the bluff to the wharf.

The lobster car, a good-sized affair of laths with a hinged cover closing the opening in its upper surface, was floating under the wharf, to which it was attached by a rope.  Brown knelt on the string-piece and peered down at it.  It floated deep in the water, the tide rippling strongly through it, between the laths.  The cover was fastened with a wooden button.

The substitute assistant, after a deal of futile and exasperating poking with the handle of the net, managed to turn the button and throw back the leather-hinged cover.  Through the square opening the water beneath looked darkly green.  There was much seaweed in the car, and occasionally this weed was stirred by living things which moved sluggishly.

John Brown reversed the net, and, lying flat on the wharf, gingerly thrust the business end of the contrivance through the opening and into the dark, weed-streaked water.  Then he began feeling for his prey.

He could feel it.  Apparently the car was alive with lobsters.  As he moved the net through the water there was always one just before it or behind it; but at least ten minutes elapsed before he managed to get one in it.  At length, when his arms were weary and his patience almost exhausted, the submerged net became heavy, and the handle shook in his grasp.  He shortened his hold and began to pull in hand over hand.  He had a lobster, a big lobster.