After that she went more slowly.
At early dawn--and it was a real dawn this time, with sunlight on the water and a golden glow in the eastern sky--the Isles of Shoals lay six miles to the southwest and the blue shore line was beckoning them.

At a little before eleven that forenoon the _Catspaw_ passed Portsmouth Light and half an hour later, having been given over to the care of a tug, was lying snugly against a wharf.
It was a tired but triumphant dozen that stretched their legs ashore at noon and set out in search of dinner.

Already they had answered a score of questions and told their story half a dozen times, and even after they were seated at table in the best restaurant that the city afforded--and it was a very good restaurant, too--an enterprising newspaper reporter found them out and Steve, as spokesman, recounted their adventures once more between mouthfuls.
And when at last they could eat no more and the reporter had gone off to write his story, Steve, Joe and Wink set forth to an address they had secured on the wharf and the others adjourned to the porch of a nearby hotel to await their return.

"Tell him," instructed Perry as they parted, "that we won't accept a cent less than a thousand dollars! And," he added to himself, "I wouldn't go through it again for fifty thousand!".