So you can imagine I'm Nate, and--" "'Twill be a big strain on my imagination to b'lieve you're Nate Scudder, Sol Berry." "Thanks.

However, you'll have to do it for a spell.

Well, Nate said that it really begun when the Professor and Olivia landed at the Wellmouth depot with the freight car full of junk.

Of course, the actual beginnin' was further back than that, when that Harmon man come on from Philadelphy and hunted him up, makin' proclamation that a friend of his, a Mr.Van Brunt of New York, had said that Scudder had a nice quiet island to let and maybe he could hire it.
"Course Nate had an island--that little sun-dried sandbank a mile or so off shore, abreast his house, which we used to call 'Horsefoot Bar.' That crazy Van Brunt and his chum, Hartley, who lived there along with Sol Pratt a year or so ago, re-christened it 'Ozone Island,' you remember.

Nate was willin' to let it.