There was the lobsterman in the middle of the board walk struggling to release the end of his peg leg from the grip of a knot hole into which he had stepped, and at the same time trying to keep the lads covered with his revolver. It was extremely ludicrous and the boys simply could not help laughing at the old man’s plight.
“Ha, ha, ho, ho, he stepped in a knot hole,” cried Jack in glee.
“Now’s our chance to run, he, he, ho, ho, ho. He couldn’t shoot or run or do much of anything now, could he? Look at him squirm,” shouted Ray.
“What’s the use of running? That would make us look guilty. Ha, ha, ha, this is funny. Come on, let’s help the old duffer out of his fix,” said Jack.
And much to the amazement of the lobsterman, the two “desprut” lobster pirates returned and pried his wooden appendage out of the hole into which it had been wedged.
“Well, blow me, this is funny,” said Mitchell, when he was again on a firm foundation. “I thought as ’ow you’d run hoff when ye seed me in such a pickle.”
“We told you we’d go along peaceably, didn’t we?” said Jack, still giggling.
“Keel ’aul me, so ye did, so ye did,” said their captor, and for the rest of the journey up the narrow street he stumped along beside them with the revolver concealed in his pocket.
The trio stopped, at Mitchell’s direction, before a dingy building over the door of which hung a faded notary’s sign, bearing the name of William Williams. The lobsterman pushed open the door and the two lads preceded him into the dim interior. A cloud of thick tobacco smoke filled the place, and the lads were not long in discovering that it emanated from a tremendous pipe being smoked by an equally tremendous individual who sat behind a desk in one corner of the room. He was a giant of a man, but for all that he had a good-natured face, and Ray and Jack liked him immediately. There was another person in the room also, a boy of about Ray’s age and not unlike him in build and features. He sat at a smaller desk against the opposite wall and was evidently Warden Williams’ assistant.
“Well, ’ere I are, Warden, ’ere I are wi’ two o’ t’ bloominest funniest lobster piruts as ever I sees. ’Ere I finds ’em a-’aulin’ o’ my lobster traps in broad daylight an’ one o’ ’em says as ’ow ’is ’nitials is t’ same es on ’is watch what I found in my lobster traps t’ other day, an’ yet ’e’s all fer denyin’ as ’e is a thief, blime ’e. Now hif—”