“To the everlastin’ brimstone with the job!” he snarled, addressing Mr. Atkins, who, partially dressed, emerged from the bedroom in bewilderment and sleepy astonishment.  “To thunder with it, I say!  I’ve had all the gov’ment jobs I want.  Life-savin’ service was bad enough, trampin’ the condemned beach in a howlin’ no’theaster, with the sand cuttin’ furrers in your face, and the icicles on your mustache so heavy you got round-shouldered luggin’ ’em.  But when your tramp was over, you had somebody to talk to.  Here, by godfreys! there ain’t nothin’ nor nobody.  I’m goin’ fishin’ again, where I can be sociable.”

“Humph!” commented Seth, “you must be lonesome all to once.  Ain’t my company good enough for you?”

“Company!  A heap of company you are!  When I’m awake you’re asleep and snorin’ and—­”

“I never snored in my life,” was the indignant interruption

“What?  You’ll snore when you’re dead, and wake up the whole graveyard.  Lonesome!” he continued, without giving his companion a chance to retort, “lonesome ain’t no name for this place.  No company but green flies and them moskeeters, and nothin’ to look at but salt water and sand and—­and—­dummed if I can think of anything else.  Five miles from town and the only house in sight shut tight.  When I come here you told me that bungalow was opened up every year—­”

“So it has been till this season.”

“And that picnics come here every once in a while.”

“Don’t expect picnickers to be such crazy loons as to come here in winter time, do you?”

“I don’t know.  If they’re fools enough to come here any time, I wouldn’t be responsible for ’em.  There ain’t so many moskeeters in winter.  But just look at this hole.  Just put on your specs and look at it!  Not a man—­but you—­not a woman, not a child, not a girl—­”

“Ah ha! ah ha!  Now we’re gettin’ at it!  Not a girl!  That’s what’s the matter with you.  You want to be up in the village, where you can go courtin’.  You’re too fur from Elsie Peters, that’s where the shoe pinches.  I’ve heard how you used to set out in her dad’s backyard, with your arm round her waist, lookin’ at each other, mushy as a couple of sassers of hasty-puddin’.  Bah!  I’ll take care my next assistant ain’t girl-struck.”

“Girl-struck!  I’d enough sight ruther be girl-struck than always ravin’ and rippin’ against females.  And all because some woman way back in Methusalem’s time had sense enough to heave you over.  At least, that’s what everybody cal’lates must be the reason.  You pretend to be a woman-hater.  All round this part of the Cape you’ve took pains to get up that kind of reputation; but—­”

“There ain’t no pretendin’ about it.  I’ve got brains enough to keep clear of petticoats.  And when you get to be as old as I be and know as much as I do—­though that ain’t no ways likely, even if you live to be nine hundred and odd, like Noah in Scripture—­you’ll feel the same way.”