"Oh, I made a trade with Mr. Brent and Nan. I'm to furnish the lumber
and furniture for the house, and those two carpenters weren't very
busy, so Mr. Daney told me I could have them to help out. In return,
Mr. Brent is going to build me a sloop and teach me how to sail it."

The Laird nodded.

"When his little home is completed, Donald," he suggested presently,
"you might take old Brent and his girl over to our old house in town
and let them have what furniture they require. See if you cannot
manage to saw off some of your mother's antiques on them," added
whimsically. "By the way, what kind of shanty is old Brent going to
build?"

"A square house with five rooms and a cupola fitted up like a
pilot-house. There's to be a flagpole on the cupola, and Nan says
they'll have colors every night and morning. That means that you hoist
the flag in the morning and salute it, and when you haul it down at
night, you salute it again. They do that up at the Bremerton
navy-yard."

"That's rather a nice, sentimental idea," Hector McKaye replied. "I
rather like old Brent and his girl for that. We Americans are too
prone to take our flag and what it stands for rather lightly."

"Nan wants me to have colors up here, too," Donald continued. "Then
she can see our flag, and we can see theirs across the bight."

"All right," The Laird answered heartily, for he was always profoundly