A quarter-hour later the sound of his exhaust had died away in the fog to the northward.
"What would he have done if he'd found any 'shorts'?" asked Percy.
"Fined us a dollar for every one," answered Jim. "Taken the cream off the summer, wouldn't it? Sometimes it pays, even in dollars and cents, to be honest."
The next morning was hot and muggy. The sea about the island was clear of fog for one or two miles. Jim and Budge had started long before light to set the trawl, and Throppy wished to make some changes on his wireless; so Filippo was glad enough of the chance to go out with Percy to haul the lobster-traps.
The little Italian had lost much of his melancholy. He enjoyed his work and the good-fellowship of the camp. The weeks of association with his new friends had made of him an entirely different fellow from the lonely, homesick lad they had picked up on the steamboat wharf at Stonington.
The two boys started in the pea-pod at six o'clock. A glassy calm overspread the sea. Even the perpetual ocean swell seemed to have lost much of its force.
He stripped off his oil-coat and sweater and rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
"It'll be hot up in the granite quarries to-day, hey, Filippo? S'pose you're sorry not to be there?"
"_Io sono contento_" ("I am satisfied"), replied the Italian.
Hauling and rebaiting the hundred-odd traps was a good five hours' job and more for the couple, neither of whom had ever handled a small boat or seen a live lobster before the previous month. As the forenoon advanced the air seemed to grow thicker and more breathless. Over the water brooded a languid haze, through which the sun rays burned with a moist, intense heat.
Percy's bare arms began to grow red and painful.
"Feel as if they were being scalded," he complained. "I've heard Jim say a fog-burn was worse than any other kind. Now I know he's right."
Eleven o'clock, and still twenty-five traps to be pulled. Most of these were on the Dog and Pups, a group of ledges more than a mile northeast of the island. It was the best spot for lobsters anywhere about Tarpaulin. Percy hesitated.
"Fog seems to be closing in a little," he observed, "and we haven't any compass. Should hate to get out there and have it shut down thick. Might be hard work to find the island again."
