Further to y’r inquiry for a 30-pound lobster, I have required my people to ask high and low of lobstermen and to haunt the fishmarkets for you. Regrettably, I have to inform you that the intensity of lobster catching these days is such that beasts of 20 pounds or more are not to be had. Even 12 pounds is considered a very substantial weight. Perhaps I can assist, however, by enclosing the following five affidavits, all legitimately signed by Maine lobstermen, each deposing that they have seen and handled in their time lobsters of 30 pounds in weight.

Cordially,

Jack Foreman

Collis slowly folded the letter up again. This was the damned limit. He had promised Nathan Hackett that he would set a thirty-pound lobster on a plate in front of him. If he couldn’t, he was going to be down by $300, and $300 on top of the $500 that Herbert Carpenter of the Madison Saloon was demanding was $800. Where the hell, with his father in perilous debt, was he going to find $800?

He said hoarsely, ‘Do you have the depositions?’

Makepeace searched in his pockets again and eventually handed over five soiled and scrappy pieces of paper, smelling of fish. Collis looked quickly through them; some were signed with crosses, others with crude, jagged signatures. Collis examined them all, then sighed.

‘It seems that times have changed since I was in the fish business,’ said Makepeace with an uneasy smile. ‘Lobsters don’t get the time to grow that large.’

Collis turned away. ‘So much for the lobsters you had to boil in your wash-house. Nothing but windbaggery. Now what the hell am I going to do?’

‘You can show those depositions.’

‘Father, depositions are not lobsters. Depositions can’t be cracked and eaten. Depositions can’t be set on a plate with pepper sauce, and served up for dinner. I promised lobster, not depositions, and now I’m sunk for three hundred dollars.’

Makepeace coughed and took out his handkerchief. ‘I can’t let you have three hundred. Not that much. Not just now.’

‘So what do you suggest I do? Welch on a bet?’

‘You shouldn’t have made the bet in the first place. It was ridiculous.’

Collis didn’t feel like arguing about it any more. His father was beaten, defeated, and struggling to keep his pride while his whole world collapsed around him, and Collis didn’t want to add to the landslide.

Nodding to himself, Makepeace went off down the hallway, to say good evening to Ida, and Collis watched him go with a feeling of desolation and unfamiliar regret. He looked so old and humbled that it was difficult for Collis to stay angry. He just hoped that Nathan Hackett would be equally understanding.

Maude came bustling downstairs, in a nasty medicine-pink dress.

‘There’s a smell of fish around here,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.