It was not very easy to do.  There were about thirty people standing on that little wharf, and they had left baskets, coats and shawls here and there, so that the standing room was pretty well covered.  Besides, when I came to look for the trap-door I found I could hardly pick it out, it had been so skilfully made.  At last I thought we were on it, so I coughed, and the black-eyed man halted.  He had been telling me some story all the time, and now he turned toward me and held out both his hands as if he were measuring the size of a fish or something.  Then he pointed out into the bay, threw back his head and laughed.  Finally he glanced down at the trap-door, looked up again quickly, and went on with his story.  Then he moved off the door, looked down at it again, pinched my arm, and whispered:  “Say, I think I’ll come back here this afternoon, and have another look at this.”

My back had been turned toward Mr. Snider all the time.  He was still at the little table, folding up his certificates.  Now I turned and glanced toward him, and found that he was watching us very intently.  I turned again, and walked toward the end of the wharf.  As I did so, the whistle of the steam-boat blew a loud toot, and the people began to crowd on board.  I walked on with the rest, getting separated, for the moment, from my friend the black-eyed man.  I saw him talking with two other men, and a little later saw Mr. Snider and Mr. Bowditch whispering together and glancing in my direction.

Well, I thought I was departing from Rogers’s Island, and from Snider, for good and all.  You would hardly believe how I got left behind.  I heard someone say, “Oh, here’s the boy who is going to find my shawl for me!” and I looked around and saw a nice, smiling old lady.

“Mr. Bowditch says he won’t let the steamer go, if you’ll run up to the house and see if you can find my grey shawl,—­I must have dropped it in the grass there, where we set down.”

I wouldn’t have done it for Snider,—­I would have suspected some kind of a trick.  But I think the lady was sincere, and moreover you don’t suspect an old person in a black silk dress, with gold spectacles, of laying plots and playing tricks.  Her request was genuine enough,—­Snider simply took advantage of it to let the steam-boat go without me.

I was less than five minutes in running up to the house, hunting in the grass until I felt sure the shawl was not there, and starting back to the wharf again.  But while I had been out of sight of the “May Queen” they had cast off the lines and steamed away.  There she was, going merrily, her stern pointed toward the island, a trail of thick smoke floating back, the band playing “After the Ball,” and no one paying the slightest attention to me!

Yes, there was though,—­just one!  The old lady in the black silk dress was standing near the stern waving her hands.  I held up mine,—­empty—­to show that I had not found the shawl, and ran down the wharf shouting:  “Wait!  Stop!  Come back!”