had a powerboat--seven and a half power gasoline--that I kept anchored
back of my nighest-in weir in deep water, and a little skiff on shore to
row off to her in.

"The yarn begins one morning when I went down to the shore after clams.
I'd noticed the signs then. They was stuck up right acrost the path: 'No
trespassing on these premises,' and 'All persons are forbidden crossing
this property, under penalty of the law.' But land! I'd used that
short-cut ever sence I'd been in Bayport--which was more'n a year--and
old man Davidson and me was good friends, so I cal'lated the signs was
intended for boys, and hove ahead without paying much attention to 'em.
'Course I knew that the old man--and, what was more important, the
old lady--had gone abroad and that the son was expected down, but that
didn't come to me at the time, neither.

"I was heading for home about eight, with two big dreeners full of
clams, and had just climbed the bluff and swung over the fence into the
path, when somebody remarks: 'Here, you!' I jumped and turned round, and
there, beating across the field in my direction, was an exhibit which,
it turned out later, was ticketed with the name of Alpheus Vandergraff
Parker Davidson--'Allie' for short.

"And Allie was a good deal of an exhibit, in his way. His togs were cut
to fit his spars, and he carried 'em well--no wrinkles at the peak or
sag along the boom. His figurehead was more'n average regular, and his
hair was combed real nice--the part in the middle of it looked like it
had been laid out with a plumb-line. Also, he had on white shoes and
glory hallelujah stockings. Altogether, he was alone with the price of
admission, and what some folks, I s'pose, would have called a handsome
enough young feller. But I didn't like his eyes; they looked kind of