His eye fell on Percy's aeneid on the shelf beside the window.

"Aha! Who's reading Virgil?"

"I am," confessed Percy. "Making up college conditions."

The stranger looked at him keenly.

"Conditions, eh? Guess you don't need to have any, unless you want 'em."

"Found you at home there, Perce!" laughed Lane.

"I don't propose to have any more after this summer," averred Percy, stoutly.

"Stick to that!" encouraged Thorpe. "There's enough have 'em that can't help it."

Taking down the volume, he opened it at the beginning of the first book, and began reading aloud, dividing the lines into feet:

_"Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit._

"Wouldn't want to say how long it's been since I last set eyes on that.

Probably you boys notice that I use the English p.r.o.nunciation of Latin instead of the continental; it's what I had when I was in college."

"What was your college?" inquired Percy.

Melancholy darkened Thorpe's face again.

"Never mind about that," he replied, a little brusquely.

Glancing round the cabin, he caught sight of Throppy's wireless outfit; soon the two were engaged in an interested discussion on wave-lengths and the effect of atmospheric disturbances. Later he was talking over the lobster law with Jim, and life-insurance with Lane. He seemed to be equally at home on all subjects.

Eight o'clock came before they realized it. The stranger's face suddenly grew somber.

"Boys," said he, "I must be going now. You've given me a mighty pleasant evening and I sha'n't forget it right away. You'll think it a strange thing for me to say, but the best return I can make for your kindness is to tell you something about myself."

He glanced at Percy.

"You asked me what my college was. I'm not going to answer that question, but I'll say this: At the end of its catalogue of graduates you'll find a page headed 'Lost Alumni,' and my name--my real name--is there. It's a list of those whose addresses are unknown to the college authorities, men who have dropped out, gone back, disappeared. n.o.body knows what's become of 'em, and by and by n.o.body cares. That's just what I am--a lost alumnus! And it's better for me to stay lost!"

With trembling hands he picked up a worm-eaten stick beside the stove.

"I'm like this stick now--only driftwood! Once I was young and sound and strong as any one of you--just as this wood was once. Now--"

Lifting the stove cover, he flung the stick into the fire; a burst of sparks shot up.

"That's all it's fit for; and it's all I'm fit for, too! Name ...

character ... friends ... home ... all gone--all gone!"

He took a step toward the door, then halted.

"I've told you this because it may do some one of you some good while there's time. Don't throw your lives away, as I've thrown away mine!"

The sober, startled faces of his hearers apparently recalled him to himself.

"Sorry I spoke so freely," he apologized. "Forget it, boys, and forget me! Everybody else has. Good night!"

He opened the door.

"Won't you stop ash.o.r.e with us?" invited Spurling. "We can fix you up a bunk."

"No; I must go aboard. My dog and cats would be lonesome; wouldn't sleep a wink without me. They're mighty knowing animals."

He went out and closed the door. The boys looked at one another. Lane was the first to speak.

"What d'you suppose was the matter with him? Must have been something pretty bad to make him feel that way. But, say! Didn't he make that violin talk? Never heard anything like it before!"

That night the boys went to bed feeling unusually serious. Percy, in particular, did not get to sleep until late. The stranger's remarks had given him much food for thought.

The next morning, before sunrise, the barking of Oliver Cromwell and a thin, blue smoke curling from the stovepipe of the _Helen_ told that the lost alumnus was preparing breakfast. Jim and Percy had started off with their trawls some time before. Stevens volunteered to help their visitor repair his boom, so Filippo went out with Lane to haul the lobster-traps.

All the boys were back at noon, when Thorpe, repairs made, waved farewell and sailed slowly out of the cove, dog and cats manning the side of the _Helen_, as if for a last salute. Throppy told of his morning's work.

"Tried to pay me for what I did; but of course I wouldn't take anything. You might not think it, but, inside, that old boat is as neat as wax. Got a good library on board, too; books there that were beyond me. All the current magazines. Easy to see how he keeps up to date about everything."

At two o'clock that afternoon in popped the _Calista_ in quest of lobsters. The boys told her captain about their strange caller. Higgins laughed shortly.

"What--old Thorpe! Oh yes, I've known of him these twenty years!

Mystery? Not so much as you might think. It's the same mystery that's ruined a lot of other men--John Barleycorn! Thorpe showed up from n.o.body knows where about a quarter of a century ago; and ever since then he's been banging up and down the coast in that old boat. They say he's a college graduate gone to the bad from drink."

"What supports him?" asked Lane. "Does he fish?"

"Not more than enough to supply himself and his live stock. I've heard he's got wealthy relatives who furnish him with all the money he needs.

He likes to live in this style, and they like to have him. He's out of their way, and they're out of his. In the winter he ties the sloop up in some harbor and stops aboard."

"He seemed to be sober enough last night," said Jim.

"Yes; when he's all right you couldn't ask for a man to be more peaceable or gentlemanly; but when he's in liquor, look out! I pa.s.sed him a month ago one squally day off Monhegan, running before the wind, sheet fast, shot to the eyes, and yelling like a wild man. It's a dangerous trick to make that sheet fast on a squally day, or on any day at all, for that matter. Some time he'll do it once too often. Well, as the saying goes, 'When rum's in, wit's out!' How's lobsters?"

XVII

BLOWN OFF

At two o'clock on a Friday morning toward the end of August Spurling and Whittington started with six tubs of trawl, baited with salted herring, for Clay Bank. Long before sunrise the last fathom of ground-line had gone overboard and the tubs were empty.

Swinging the _Barracouta_ about, they retraced their course to the first buoy.