Five minutes later he got another, but it was too small to be of use. In
twenty minutes he netted three more, two of which got away. The third,
however, he dragged pantingly to the wharf and sat beside it, gloating.
It was his for keeps, and it was a big one, the great-grandaddy of
lobsters. Its claws clashed and snapped at the twine of the net like a
pair of giant nut crackers.

Carrying it as far from his body as its weight at the end of the handle
would permit, he bore it in triumph to the kitchen. To boil a lobster
alive had seemed a mean trick, and cruel, when Seth Atkins first ordered
him to do it. Now he didn't mind; it would serve the thing right for
being so hard to catch. Entering the kitchen, he balanced the net across
a chair and stepped to the range to see if the water was boiling. It was
not, and for a very good reason--the fire had gone out. Again Mr. Brown
expressed his feelings.

The fire, newly kindled, had burned to the last ash. If he had been
there to add more coal in season, it would have survived; but he had
been otherwise engaged. There was nothing to be done except rake out the
ashes and begin anew. This he did. When he removed the kettle he decided
at once that it was much too small for the purpose required of it. To
boil a lobster of that size in a kettle of that size would necessitate
boiling one end at a time, and that, both for the victim and himself,
would be troublesome and agonizing. He hunted about for a larger kettle
and, finding none, seized in desperation upon the wash boiler, filled
it, and lifted it to the top of the stove above the flickering new fire.

The fire burned slowly, and he sat down to rest and wait. As he sank
into the chair--not that across which the netted lobster was balanced,
but another--he became aware of curious sounds from without. Distant