Part 34 (1/2)

strictly to business at mealtime.

But when he's finished off with a section of deep-dish apple pie and a big cup of coffee he sighs satisfied, unhooks the napkin, lights up a perfecto I've ordered for him, and resumes where he left off.

”It's a heap of money ain't it?” says he. ”I didn't know at first whether or no I ought to take it. That's one thing I come on for.”

”Ye-e-es?” says I, a little sarcastic maybe. ”Had to be urged, did you?”

”Wall,” says he, ”I wa'n't sure the fam'ly could afford it exactly.”

”It was a gift, then?” says I.

”Willed to me,” says he. ”Kind of curious too. Shucks! when I took them folks off the yacht that time I wa'n't thinkin' of anything like this.

Course, the young feller did offer me some bills at the time; but he did it like he thought I was expectin' to be paid, and I--well, I couldn't take it that way. So I didn't git a cent. I thought the whole thing had been forgotten too, when that letter from the lawyers comes sayin' how this Mr. Fowler had----”

”Not Roswell K.?” I breaks in.

”Yes, that's the man,” says he.

”Why, I remember now,” says I. ”It was the yacht his son and his new wife was takin' a honeymoon trip on. And she went on some rocks up on the coast of Maine durin' a storm. The papers was full of it at the time. And how they was all rescued by an old lobsterman who made two trips in a leaky tub of a motorboat out through a howlin' northeaster.

And--why, say, you don't mean to tell me you're Uncle Jimmy Isham, the hero?”

”Sho!” says he. ”Don't you begin all that nonsense again. I was pestered enough by the summer folks that next season. You ought to see them schoolma'ams takin' snapshots of me every time I turned around. And gus.h.i.+n'! Why, it was enough to make a dog laugh! Course I ain't no hero.”

”But that must have been some risky stunt of yours, just the same,” I insists.

”Wall,” he admits, ”it wa'n't just the weather I'd pick to take the old Curlew out in; but when I see through the gla.s.ses what the white thing was that's poundin' around on Razor Back Ledges, and seen the distress signal run up--why, I couldn't stay ash.o.r.e. There was others would have gone, I guess, if I hadn't. But there I was, an old bach, and not much good to anybody anyway, you know.”

”Come, come!” says I. ”Why wa'n't you as good as the next?”

”I dun'no,” says he, sighin' a little. ”Only--only you know the kind of a chap that everybody calls Uncle Jimmy? That--that's me.”

”But you went out and got 'em!” I goes on.

”Yes,” says he. ”It wa'n't so much, though. You know how the papers run on?”

I didn't say yes or no to that. I was sittin' there starin' across the table, tryin' to size up this leather-faced old party with the bashful ways and the simple look in his steady eyes. The grizzled mustache curlin' close around his mouth corners, the heavy eyebrows, and the thick head of gray hair somehow reminds me of Mark Twain, as we used to see him a few years back walkin' up Fifth-ave. Only Uncle Jimmy was a little softer around the chin.

”Let's see,” says I, ”something like three summers ago, that was, wa'n't it?”

”Four,” says he, ”the eighteenth of September.”

”And since then?” says I.

”Just the same as before,” says he. ”I've been right at Pemaquid.”

”At what?” says I.

”Pemaquid,” he repeats, leanin' hard on the ”quid.” ”I've been there goin' on forty years, now.”

”Doin' what?” says I.

”Oh, lobsterin' mostly,” says he. ”But late years they've been runnin'