Eben George Edgar Edwin Delmonico Frank went out, dabbin' at his forehead with the red and yellow handkerchief. Jacobs kept his clove hitch on my arm and led me out to the settee on the front platform.

"Set down, Skipper," he says, cheerful and more'n extra friendly, seemed to me. "Set down," he says, "and enjoy the December ozone."

We come to anchor on the settee and there we set and shivered for much as five minutes, each of us waitin' for the other to begin. Finally Jim Henry says, without lookin' at me:

"Well, Skipper," he says, "that chap's sharp all right, ain't he?"

"Seems to be," says I, not too enthusiastic.

"Yes, he is. If I'm any judge of human nature—and I hand myself that bouquet any day in the week—he knows his business. Don't you think so?"

"Maybe," I says. "But what business of ours his business is I don't see—yet. If you do, bein' as you and me are supposed to be partners, perhaps you wouldn't mind soundin' the fog whistle for my benefit. I seem to have lost my reckonin' on this v'yage. Why should we be interested in this Frank man and his eatin'-house?"

He laughed, louder'n was necessary, I thought, and slapped me on the shoulder.

"You don't see where we come in, hey?" he says. "Well, I do. A dinin'-room like that one of his will need a good many supplies, won't it? And, if I can mesmerize him into patronizin' the home market, the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Emporium will gain some, I shouldn't wonder. Hey, pard! How about that?" And he slapped my shoulder again.

I turned this over in my mind. "Humph!" I says. "I begin to see."

"You bet you do!" he says, laughin'. "The amount of stuff I can sell that restaurant will—"

But I broke in here. I remembered that wink and I didn't believe I was clear of the choppin'-block yet.

"Hold on!" says I. "Heave to! And never mind poundin' my starboard shoulder to pieces, either. I said I begun to see; I don't see clear yet. How did you and he come to get together in the fust place? Did you go and hunt him up? or did he come in here to see you?"

He kind of hesitated. "Why," he says, "he come into the store, and—"

"Did he happen in, or did he come to see you a-purpose?"

"He—I believe he came to see me. Then he and I—"

"Heave to again! He didn't come to see you to beg the favor of buyin' goods of you, 'tain't likely. Jim Jacobs, answer me straight. There's somethin' else. That feller wants somethin' of you—or of us. Now what is it?"

He hesitated some more. Then he upset the woodpile and let out the darky.

"Well," he says, "I'll tell you. I was goin' to tell you, anyway. Frank's all right. He's got a good idea and he's got the experience to put it into practice; but he's somethin' the way old Beanblossom was afore you took a share in this store—he needs a little more capital."

I swung round on the settee and looked him square in the eye.

"I—see," I says, slow. "Now—I see! He's after money and he wants us to lend it to him. I might have guessed it. Well, did you say no right off? or was you waitin' to have me say it? You might have said it yourself. You knew I'd back you up."

Would you believe it? he got as red as a beet.

"I didn't say anything," he says. "Don't go off half-cocked like that. What's the matter with you this mornin'? He don't want to borrer money. He wants more capital in the proposition—wants to float it right. And he's been inquirin' around and has found that you and me are the two leadin' business men in the place and has come to us first. It's more a favor on his part than anything else. He offers to let us have a third interest between us; you put in a thousand and I do the same. Why, man, it's a cinch! It's a chance that don't come every day. As I told you, I've had the same notion in my head for a long time. A summer dinin'-room like that in this town is—"

"Wait!" I interrupted. "What do you know about this Frank critter? Where'd he come from? Who is he?"

"He comes from Pittsburg. That's the last place he was in. And he's got his pockets full of references and testimonials."

"Humph! Anybody can get testimonials. Write 'em himself, if there wa'n't any other way. I had a second mate once with more testimonials than shirts, enough sight, and he—"

"Oh, cut it out! Besides, I don't care where he comes from. He's sharp as a steel trap; that much I can tell with one eye shut. And he's run dinin'-rooms and hotels; that I'll bet my hat on. That's all we need to know. A road-house in this town is a twenty per cent proposition durin' the summer months. It's the chance of a lifetime, I tell you."

"Maybe so. But how do you know the feller's honest?"

"I don't care whether he's honest or not. It doesn't make any difference. If I wa'n't here to keep my eye peeled, it might be; but I'll be here and if he gets ahead of me, he'll be movin' to some extent. Someone else'll grab the chance if we don't. I'm for it. What do you say?"

I shook my head. "Jim," says I, "I can see where you stand. You're so dead sartin that an eatin'-house of that kind'll pay big, that you're blind to the rest of it. Now I don't pretend to be a judge of human nature like you—leavin' out Injun and Rosenstein human nature, of course—nor a doctor of sick businesses, which is your profession. But my experience is—"

He stood up and sniffed impatient.

"Cut it out, I tell you!" he says, again. "This ain't an experience meetin'. Will you take a flyer with me in that road-house, or won't you?"

"Way I feel now, I won't," says I, prompt.

He turned on his heel, took a step towards the door and then stopped.

"Well," he says, "you think it over till to-morrer mornin' and then let me know. Only, you mark my words, it's a chance. And, with me to keep my eye on it, there's no risk at all."

So that's the way it ended that day. And half that night I laid awake, feelin' meaner'n dirt to say no to as good a partner as I had, and yet pretty average sure I was right, just the same.

In the mornin' my mind was still betwixt and between. I went down to the store and walked back to the post-office department. I looked in through the little window and saw Mary Blaisdell inside, sortin' the outgoin' letters. The sunshine, streamin' in from outside, lit up her hair till it looked like one of them halos in a church picture. Seems to me I never saw her look prettier; but then, every time I saw her I thought the same thing. A good-lookin' woman and a good woman—yes, and capable. That she'd lived so many years without gettin' married, was one of the things that made a feller lose confidence in the good-sense of humans. The chap that got her would be lucky. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the lookin'-glass where customers tried on hats, and decided I'd better stop thinkin' foolishness or somebody would catch me at it and send me to the comic papers.

"Mornin', Mary," says I. "Has Mr. Jacobs come aboard yet?"

She turned and came to her side of the window.

"Yes," she says, "he was here. He's gone out now with that Mr. Frank. I believe they've gone up to the old Higgins Place."

"Um-hm," says I. "Well, Mary, just between friends, I'd like to ask you somethin'. Do you like that Frank man's looks?"

She wa'n't expectin' that and she didn't know how to answer for a jiffy. Then she kind of half laughed, and says: "No, Cap'n Zeb, since you ask me, I—I don't. I don't like him. And I haven't any good reason, either."

I nodded. "Much obliged, Mary," says I. "And, since you ain't asked me, I'll tell you that I don't like him. And my reason's about as good as yours. Maybe it's his clothes. A man, 'cordin' to my notion, has a right to look like a horse jockey, if he wants to; and he's got a right to look like an undertaker. But when he looks like a combination of the two, I—well, I get skittish and begin to shy, that's all. It's too much as if he was baited to trap you dead or alive."

Then Jim Henry come in and when, an hour or so later, he got me one side and asked me if I'd made up my mind about investin' in Frank's road-house, I answered prompt that my mind was made up and the answer was still no. He was disapp'inted, I could see that, and pretty mad.

"Humph!" says he. "Skipper, you're all right except for one fault—you're as 'country' as they make 'em, and they make 'em pretty narrer sometimes. Well, you've had the chance. Don't ever tell me you haven't."

"I won't," says I, and we didn't mention the subject for a long time. Then—but that comes later. However, I judged that Frank had found folks in Ostable who wa'n't as narrer and "country" as I was, for, inside of a week, the carpenters was busy on the Higgins Place. They built on great, wide piazzas; they knocked out partitions between rooms; they made the house pretty much over. In March loads of fancy furniture came from Boston. At last a windmill three feet high—made to look like a little copy of the old Cape windmills our great-granddads used to grind grist in, with sails that turned—was set up in the front yard, and on a post by the big gate was swingin' a fancy notice board, with a gilt windmill painted on that, and the words in big letters:

That was it, you see. "The Sign of the Windmill" was the name of the new road-house.

But that wa'n't all the advertisin', by a consider'ble sight. There was signs all up and down the main roads, with hands p'intin' in the "Windmill" direction. And there was ads in the Cape papers and in the Boston papers, too. I swan, I didn't believe anybody but Jim Henry Jacobs could have engineered such advertisin'! And there was a black-lookin' critter with the ends of his mustache waxed so sharp you could have sewed canvas with 'em—he was the French chef—and three foreign waiters, and a dark-complected fleshy woman who seemed to be a sort of general assistant manager and stewardess, and—and—goodness knows what there wa'n't. There was so many kinds of hired help that I couldn't see where Frank himself come in—unless he was the spare "windmill," which, judgin' by his gift of gab, I cal'late might be the fact.

"The Sign of the Windmill" bought all its groceries and general supplies at the store, which, considerin' that we'd turned down the "chance" to be part owners, seemed sort of odd to me, 'cause Frank didn't look like a feller who'd forgive a slight like that. But I judged Jim Henry had hypnotized him, as he done other difficult customers, and so I said nothin'. The auto season opened and our weekly bills with that road-house was big ones, but they was paid every week, and I hadn't any kick there, either.

As for the business that dinin'-room done, it was surprisin', particularly Saturdays and Sundays, when there'd be twenty or more autos in the front yard and more a-comin'. The table d'hote dinner at 1.15 was so well patronized that folks had to wait their turns at table and later, on moonlight nights, the old house was all lighted up and you could hear the noise of dishes rattlin' and the laughin' and singin' till after eleven o'clock. And our bills with the "Sign of the Windmill" kept gettin' bigger and bigger.

But though the auto parties was thick and the patronage good, still there was some dissatisfaction, I found out. One big car stopped at the store on a Saturday afternoon and the boss of it talked with me while the women folks was inside buyin' postcards and such.

"Well," says I, to the owner of the car, a big, fleshy, good-natured chap he was, "well," says I, "I cal'late you've all had a good dinner. Feed you fust-class up there at the Windmill place, don't they?"

He sniffed. "Humph!" says he, "the food's all right. It ought to be, at the price. Is the proprietor of that hotel named Allie Baby?"

"Allie which?" I says, laughin'. "No, no, his name's Frank. Edwin George Eben etcetery Frank. What made you think 'twas Allie?"

"'Cause he's a close connection of the Forty Thieves," he says, sharp. "He'd take a prize in the hog class at a county fair, that chap would. What's the matter with him? Does he think he's runnin' a get-rich-quick shop? Two weeks ago I paid a dollar and a half for a dinner there, and that was seventy-five cents too much. Now he's jumped to two-fifty and the feed ain't a bit better."

"Two dollars and a half for a dinner!" says I. "Whew! The cost of livin' is goin' up, ain't it? What do they give you? Canary birds' tongues on toast? Any shore dinner ever I see could be cooked for—"

He interrupted. "Shore dinner nothin'!" he snorts. "I wouldn't kick at the price if I got a good shore dinner. But what we got here is a poor imitation of a country Waldorf. Everybody's kickin', but we all go there because it's the best we can find for twenty miles. However, I hear another place is to be started in Denboro and if that makes good, your Forty Thief friend will have to haul in his horns. He'll never get another cent from me, or a hundred others I know, who have been his best customers. We're all waitin' to give him the shake and it looks as if we should be able to do it. We motorin' fellers stick together and, if the word's passed along the line, the "Sign of the Windmill" will be a dead one, mark my words."

I marked 'em, and when, by and by, I heard that the Denboro dinin'-room was open and doin' a good business, I underscored the mark.

This was about the middle of June. A week later Jim Henry got the telegram about his younger brother out in Colorado bein' sick and wantin' to see him bad. He hated to go, but he felt he had to, so he went.

I said good-by to him up at the depot and told him not to worry a mite. "I'll look out for everything," I says. "Course I'll miss you at the store, but I'll write you every day or so and keep you posted, and you can give me business prescriptions by mail."

"That's all right, Skipper," says he, "I know the store'll be took care of. But there's one thing that—that—"

"What's the one thing?" I asked. "Overboard with it. My shoulders are broad and I won't mind totin' another hogshead or so."

He hesitated and it seemed to me that he looked troubled. But finally he said he'd guessed 'twas nothin' that amounted to nothin' anyway and he'd be back in a couple of weeks sure. So off he went and I had a sort of Robinson Crusoe desert island feelin' that lasted all that day and night.

It lasted longer than that, too. I didn't hear from him for ten days. Then I got a note sayin' his brother had scarlet fever—which seemed a fool disease for a grown-up man to have—and was pretty sick. I wrote to him for the land sakes to be careful he didn't get it himself, and the next news I heard was from a doctor sayin' he had got it. After that the bulletins was infrequent and alarmin'.

I'd have put for Colorado in a minute, but I couldn't; that store was on my shoulders and I couldn't leave. I telegraphed not to spare no expense and to write or wire every day. 'Twas all I could do, but I never spent such a worried time afore nor since. I was worried, not only about my partner, but about the business he'd put in my charge. There was new developments in that business and they kept on developin'.

'Twas the "Sign of the Windmill" that was troublin' me. As I told you, the weekly bills for that eatin'-house was big ones, but the fust three or four had been paid on the dot. Now, however, they wa'n't paid and they was just as big. Frank's account on our books kept gettin' larger and larger and, not only that, but anybody could see that the Windmill wa'n't doin' half the trade it begun with. There was more auto parties than ever, but the heft of 'em went right on by to the new road-house in Denboro. I remembered what the fleshy man told me and I judged that the word had been passed to the motorin' crew, just as he prophesied.

I went up to see Frank and had a talk with him. I found him in his office, settin' at a fine new roll-top desk, with the dark-complected stewardess alongside of him. She seemed to be helpin' him with his letters and accounts, which looked odd to me, and she glowered at me when I come in like a cat at a stray poodle. She didn't get up and go out, neither, till he hinted p'raps she'd better, and even then she whispered to him mighty confidential afore she went. 'Twas a queer way for hired help to act, but 'twa'n't none of my affairs, of course.

He was cordial enough till he found out what I was after and then he chilled up like a freezer full of cream. He was in the habit of payin' his bills, he give me to understand, and he'd pay this one when 'twas convenient. If I didn't care to sell the Windmill goods, that was my affair, of course, but his relations with my partner had been so pleasant that—and so forth and so on. I sneaked out of that office, feelin' like a henroost-thief instead of an honest man tryin' to collect an honest debt. I'd bungled things again. Instead of makin' matters better, I'd made 'em worse; come nigh losin' a good customer and all that. What business had an old salt herrin' like me to be in business, anyhow? That's how I felt when I was talkin' to him, and how I felt when I shut that office door and come out into the dinin'-room.

But the sight of that dinin'-room, tables all vacant, and two waiters where there had been four, fetched all my uneasiness back again. If ever a place had "Goin' down" marked on it 'twas the "Sign of the Windmill." I stewed and fretted all the way to the store and when I got there I found that another big order of groceries and canned goods had been delivered to the eatin' house while I was gone.

The next week'll stick in my mind till doomsday, I cal'late. Every blessed mornin' found me vowin' I'd stop sellin' that Windmill, and every night found more dollars added to the bill. You see, I didn't know what to do. If I'd been sole owner and sailin' master, I'd have set my foot down, I guess; but there was Jim Henry to be considered. I wrote a note to the Frank man, but he didn't even trouble to answer it.

Saturday noon came round and, after the mail was sorted, I wandered out to the front platform and set there, blue as a whetstone. The gang of summer boarders and natives, that's always around mail times, melted away fast and I was pretty nigh alone. Not quite alone; Alpheus Perkins, the fish man, was occupyin' moorin's at t'other end of the platform and he didn't seem to be in any hurry. By and by over he comes and sets down alongside of me.

"Cap'n Zeb," he says, fidgety like, "I s'pose likely you've been wonderin' why I don't pay your bill here at the store, ain't you?"

I hadn't, havin' more important things to think about, but now I remembered that he did owe consider'ble and had owed it for some time. Alpheus is as straight as they make 'em and usually pays his debts prompt.

"I know you must have," he went on, not waitin' for me to answer. "Well, I intended to pay long afore this, and I will pay pretty soon. But I've had trouble collectin' my own debts and it's held me back. If I could only get my hands on one account that's owin' me, I'd be all right. Say," says he, tryin' hard to act careless and as if 'twa'n't important one way or t'other: "Say," he says, "you know Mr. Frank, up here at the hotel, pretty well, don't you?"

For a minute or so I didn't answer. Then I knocked the ashes out of my pipe and says I, "Why, yes. I know him. What of it?"

"Oh, nothin' much," he says. "Only I was told he was a partic'lar friend of yours and Mr. Jacobs's and—and—"

"Who told you he was our partic'lar friend?" I asked.

"Why, he did. I was up there yesterday, just hintin' I could use a check on account. Not pressin' the matter nor tryin' to be hard on him, you understand; course he's all right; but I was mighty short of ready cash and so—"

"Hold on, Al!" I said, quick. "Wait! Does the 'Sign of the Windmill' owe you a bill?"

"Pretty nigh a hundred dollars," says he. "I've supplied 'em with fish and lobsters and clams and such ever since they started. Fust month they paid me by the week. After that—"

"Good heavens and earth!" I sung out. "My soul and body! And—and, when you asked for it, this—this Frank man told you he'd pay you when 'twas convenient, same as he paid Jacobs and me, who was his friends and was quite ready to do business that way."

He actually jumped, I'd surprised him so.

"Hey?" he sung out. "Zeb Snow, be you a second-sighter? How did you know he told me that?"

I drew a long breath. "It didn't take second sight for that," I says. "I was up there last Monday and he told me the same thing, only 'twas you and Ed Cahoon who was his friends then."

He let that sink in slow.

"My godfreys domino!" he groaned. "My godfreys! He—he told—Why! why, he must be workin' the same game on all hands!"

"Looks like it," says I, and, thinkin' of Jim Henry, poor feller, sick as he could be, and the business he'd left me to look out for, my heart went down into my boots.

Perkins set thinkin' for a jiffy. Then he got up off the settee.

"The son of a gun!" he says. "I'll fix him! I'll put my bill in a lawyer's hands to-night."

"No, you won't," I sung out, grabbin' him by the arm. "You mustn't. He owes the Ostable Store four times what he owes you, and it's likely he owes Cahoon and a lot more. The rest of us can't afford to let you upset the calabash that way. You might get yours, though I'm pretty doubtful, but where would the rest of us come in. You set down, Alpheus. Set down, and let me think. Set down, I tell you!"

When I talk that way—it's an old seafarin' habit—most folks usually obey orders. Alpheus set. He started to talk, but I hushed him up and, havin' filled my pipe and got it to goin', I smoked and thought for much as five minutes.

"Hum!" says I, after the spell was over, "the way I sense it is like this: This ain't any fo'mast hand's job; and it ain't a skipper's job neither. It's a case for all hands and the ship's cat, workin' together and standin' by each other. We've got to find out who's who and what's what, make up our minds and then all read the lesson in concert, like young ones in school. This Frank Windmill critter owes you and he owes me; we're sartin of that. More'n likely he owes Ed Cahoon for chickens and fowls and eggs, and Bill Bangs for milk, and Henry Hall for ice, and land knows how many more. S'pose you skirmish around and find out who he does owe and fetch all the creditors to the store here to-morrer mornin' at eleven o'clock. It'll be church time, I know, but even the parson will excuse us for this once, 'specially as the 'Sign of the Windmill' is supposed to sell liquor and he's down on it."

We had consider'ble more talk, but that was the way it ended, finally. I went to bed that night, but it didn't take; I might as well have set up, so fur's sleep was concerned. All I could think of was poor, sick Jim Henry and the trust he put in me.