“My menag—­What on earth?  Say, hold on!  Mercy on us, what’s that?”

From the top of the bluff came a crashing and a series of yelps.  Through the thicket of beachplum bushes was thrust a yellow head, fringed with torn fragments of fly paper.

“What’s that?” demanded the astonished lightkeeper.

Brown looked at the whining apparition in the bushes and smiled maliciously.

“That,” he observed, “is Job.”

“Job?”

“Yes.”  From somewhere in the grove came a thrashing of branches and a frightened neigh.  “And that,” he continued, “is Joshua, I presume.  If there are more Old Testament patriarchs in the vicinity, I don’t know where they are, and I don’t care.  You may hunt for them yourself.  I’m going to follow your advice and mind my own business.  Good by.”

He strode off up the beach.  Job, at the top of the bank, started to follow, but a well-aimed pebble caused him to dodge back.

“Hold on!” roared the lightkeeper.  “Maybe I made a mistake.  Perhaps you wa’n’t spyin’ on me.  Don’t go off mad.  I . . .  Wait!”

But John Brown did not wait.  He strode rapidly away up the beach.  Seth stared after him.  From the grove, where his halter had caught firmly in the fork of a young pine, Joshua thrashed and neighed.

“Aa-oo-ow!” howled Job, from the bushes.

An hour later Atkins, leading the weary and homesick Joshua by the bridle, trudged in at the lighthouse yard.  Job, still ornamented with remnants of the fly paper, slunk at his heels.  Seth stabled the horse and, after some manoeuvering, managed to decoy the dog down the slope to the boathouse, where he closed the door upon him and his whines.  Then he climbed back to the kitchen.

The table was set for one, and in the wash boiler on the range the giant lobster was cooking.  Of the substitute assistant keeper there was no sign, but, after searching, Seth found him in his room.

“Well?” observed Atkins, gruffly, “we might ’s well have supper, hadn’t we?”

Brown did not seem interested.  “Your supper is ready, I think,” he answered.  “I tried not to forget anything.”

“I guess ’tis; seems to be.  Come on, and we’ll eat.”

“I have eaten, thank you.”

“You have?  Alone?”

“Yes.  That, too,” with emphasis, “is a part of my business.”

The lightkeeper stared, grunted, and then went out of the room.  He ate a lonely meal, not of the lobster—­he kept that for another occasion—­but one made up of cold scraps from the pantry.  He wandered uneasily about the premises, quieted Job’s wails for the time by a gift of eatable odds and ends tossed into the boathouse, smoked, tried to read, and, when it grew dusk, lit the lamps in the towers.  At last he walked to the closed door of his helper’s room and rapped.

“Well?” was the ungracious response.

“It’s me, Atkins,” he announced, hesitatingly.  “I’d like to speak to you, if you don’t mind.”