d it was admitted that his nosegay vest and
blue coat, as far as tender refinement went, far surpassed anything in
the room.

"That's Angie Fay Kobbe, my wife, at the organ. Ten years ago, when I
was still cruising, I found and rescued her from a southern cyclone!"

I murmured astonishment, though in truth something of a cyclonic
atmosphere still hovered about Mrs. Kobbe, not only in her method of
performance on the organ, but in her sparkling features, young and
beautiful, her wide-flowing curled hair.

"How old does she seem to you to be, sir?"

"She looks to me," I said, with honesty, "to be eighteen or
twenty--twenty-five at the most."

"Sir, she is forty!" said Captain Judah proudly. Angie Fay shot him a
bewitching glance through the open door.

"She is not only a skilled performer on the keys, as you see, but she
is a wide-idead thinker. If it would not detain you, sir, against
previous inclination to the ball-room, I should like to read you some
of her poetry."

Glances too oppressed by awe to contain envy were cast upon me by my
former companions from afar; even the man who had been in California
was retreating in baffled dismay.

"This first," said Captain Judah, drawing a roll from his pocket,
"though brief, has been called by many wide-idead thinkers a 'rounded
globe of pathos:' men, strong men, have wept over it. It has had a
yard built around it; in other words, it has been framed, and hung in
many a bereaved household; let me read:

"'Farewell, my husband dear, farewell!
Adieu! farewell to you.
And you, my children dear, adieu!
Farewell! farewell to thee!
Adieu! farewell! adieu!'

"Were you looking for your handkerchief, sir?"

"Yes," said I, accidentally swallowing whole a nervine lozenge which
Captain Leezur had given me.

"This," said Captain Judah, with an expressive smile, as he opened
another roll, "if you will excuse the egotism, refers to an experience
of my own. I was once, when master of a whaler, nearly killed in a
conflict with a whale; in fact, I am accustomed to speak of it
paradoxically--or shall I say hyperbolically--as 'The time when I was
killed!' My account of it made a great impression upon Angie; but I
will read:

"'Upon the deep and foaming brine,
My Judah's blood was spilled.
The anguished tears gush from my eyes.
O Judah, wast thou killed?

"'Had I beheld that awful scene,
I should have turned me pale,
My eyes were mercif