Uncle William paused.  He looked up to the clear sky.  “I shouldn’t need her much more this fall, anyways,” he said.  “An’ come spring, I’ll get another.  I’ve been needin’ a new boat a good while.”

Andrew grunted.  He glanced a little jealously at the Andrew Halloran.  “Got the money?” he asked.

“Well, not got it, so to speak,” said Uncle William, “but I reckon I shall have it when the time comes.”

Andrew’s face lightened a little.  “What you countin’ on?” he said.

Uncle William considered.  “There’s the fish.  Gunnion hain’t settled with me yet for my fish.”

Andrew nodded.  “Seventy-five dollars.”

“And I’ve got quite a count of lobsters up to the boardin’-house—­”

Andrew’s small eyes squinted knowingly.  “Out o’ season?”

Uncle William returned the look benignly.  “We didn’t date the ’count—­just lumped ’em, so much a catch; saves trouble.”

Andrew chuckled.  “I’ve saved trouble that way myself.”  He made a rough calculation.  “It won’t make a hunderd, all told.  How you goin’ to get the rest?”

“Mebbe I shall borrow it,” said Uncle William.  He looked serenely at the sky.  “Like enough he’ll send a little suthin’,” he added.

“Like enough!” said Andrew.

“He mentioned it,” said Uncle William.

“He’s gone,” said Andrew.  He gave a light p-f-f with his lips and screwed up his eyes, seeming to watch a bubble sail away.

Uncle William smiled.  “You don’t have faith, Andy,” he said reproachfully.  “Folks do do things, a good many times—­things that they say they will.  You o’t to have faith.”

Andrew snuffed.  “When I pin my faith to a thing, Willum, I like to hev suthin’ to stick the pin into,” he said scornfully.

They worked in silence.  Seagulls dipped about them.  Off shore the sea-lions bobbed their thick, flabby black heads inquiringly in the water and climbed clumsily over the kelp-covered rocks.

Andrew’s eyes rested impassively on their gambols.  “Wuthless critters,” he said.

Uncle William’s face softened as he watched them.  “I kind o’ like to see ’em, Andy—­up and down and bobbin’ and sloppin’ and scramblin’; you never know where they’ll come up next.”

“Don’t need to,” grumbled Andy.  “Can’t eat the blamed things—­nor wear ’em.  I tell you, Willum,”—­he turned a gloomy eye on his companion,—­“I tell you, you set too much store by wuthless things.”

“Mebbe I do,” said William, humbly.

“This one, now—­this painter fellow.”  Andrew gave a wave of his hand that condensed scorn.  “What’d you get out o’ him, a-gabblin’ and sailin’ all summer?”

“I dunno, Andy, as I could jest put into words,” said William, thoughtfully, “what I did get out o’ him.”

“Ump!  I guess you couldn’t—­nor anybody else.  When he sends you anything for that boat o’ yourn, you jest let me know it, will you?”