shoulder.

“Say miss,” he said. “Say Miss—Nancy,” he corrected himself, “could a feller buy that there knife?”

“Why,” flushed Nancy, “the knife hasn’t anything to do with the story—”

“Naw!” came a chorus. “'Course not!”

“It was a corkin’ good story,” applauded Nort Duncan, clapping grimy hands.

“But you said the ole captain cut the ropes with a rusty knife—” the little fellow insisted.

“Now look here, boys,” called out Ruth suddenly. “You are all settled down, nice, quiet and orderly. Suppose we begin to see what you want to buy. There are three of us to serve you, and if we divide you up in three groups, I’m sure we can give every single one of you the biggest bargain you ever got in fishing tackle.”

After that, something like order prevailed, for most boys are not devoid of a sense of honor, not by any means, and surely after Nancy’s story they owed her attention and politeness.

Ted helped. He was able to hand out the poles and took pride in doing so. They were, most of them, nice shiny, new bamboo canes, and it didn’t matter how long it took him to please a customer. In one hour, however, he had sold ten at fifty cents, five at seventy-five cents and two at a dollar each. Ted was delighted, and secretly agreed with Nancy that “business was the thing.”

Meanwhile the girls were busy, and happy. Ruth had taken charge of the sinkers and hooks. Isabel was having a fine time with the crab nets and fancy reels, the nickel kind with the stem winders, while Nancy acted as general supervisor and director of the entire stock.

Things were going merrily and few disagreements marred the proceedings (not to count the scooping up of fellows’ caps in trying out crab nets, or the occasional protest from someone who would resent being poked with new fish poles), when there appeared at the door a very pleasant looking, in fact a very “good-looking” young girl.

“That’s Sanders’ girl,” said a boy into Nancy’s ear. “You know the feller that—disappears,” he hurried to explain.

Nancy had neither time nor opportunity to ask questions so she turned to meet the very blue eyes of the young girl in question.

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