“Come, come, Isaiah,” she said, “don’t look so tragic.  There isn’t anything so dreadful about it.  Have you promised—­have you given your word not to tell?  Because if you have I shan’t ask you to break it.  I shall go to Judge Baxter instead—­or to Uncle Shad.  But of course I shall be obliged to tell how I came to know—­the little I do know.”

Mr. Chase did not like the prospect of her going to the Captain, that was plain.  For the first time his obstinacy seemed to waver.

“I—­I don’t know’s I ever give my word,” he admitted.  “I never promised nothin’, as I recollect.  Cap’n Shad he give me orders—­”

“Yes, yes, of course he did.  Well, now I’m giving you orders.  And I promise you, Isaiah, if it ever becomes necessary I’ll stand between you and Uncle Shad.  Now tell me.”

Isaiah sat down upon the bed and wiped his forehead.

“Oh, Lordy!” he moaned.  “I wisht my mouth had been sewed up afore ever I said a word about any of it. . . .  But—­but . . .  Well,” desperately, “what is it you want to know?”

“I want to know everything.  Begin at the beginning and tell me who Mr. Farmer was.”

Mr. Chase marked a pattern on the floor with his slippered foot.  Then he began: 

“He come from up Cape Ann way in the beginnin’,” he said.  “The rest of the firm was Cape Codders, but he wan’t.  However, he’d been a-fishin’ and he knew fish and after the firm was fust started and needed an extry bookkeeper he applied and got the job.  There was three of ’em in Hall and Company at fust, all young men they was, too; your stepfather, Cap’n Marcellus Hall, he was the head one; and Mr. Zoeth, he was next and Cap’n Shad next.  ’Twan’t until three or four year afterwards that Ed Farmer was took in partner.  He was so smart and done so well they give him a share and took him in.

“Everybody liked him, too.  He was younger even than the rest, and fine lookin’ and he had a—­a kind of way with him that just made you like him.  The way the business was handled was somethin’ like this:  Cap’n Marcellus, your stepfather, Mary-’Gusta, he and Cap’n Shad done the outside managin’, bossin’ the men—­we had a lot of ’em on the wharf them days, too, and there was always schooners unloadin’ and carts loadin’ up and fellers headin’ up barrels—­Oh, Hall and Company’s store and docks was the busiest place on the South Shore.  You ask anybody that remembers and they’ll tell you so.

“Well, Cap’n Marcellus and Cap’n Shad was sort of outside bosses, same as I said, and Zoeth he was sort of general business boss, ‘tendin’ to the buyin’ supplies and payin’ for ’em and gettin’ money and the like of that, and Ed—­Edgar Farmer, I mean—­he was inside office boss, lookin’ out for the books and the collections and the bank account and so on.  Marcellus and Zoeth and Cap’n Shad was old chums and had been for years; they was as much to each other as brothers and always had been; but it wan’t so very long afore they thought as much of Farmer as they did of themselves.  He was that kind—­you couldn’t help takin’ a notion to him.