s
arrangement, through the day's perils, of his hair.

"Ye see now what ye've done, don't ye?" said the captain to his wife.

Mrs. Kobbe came over and stood beside me.

"'T looks 'like somethin' 't the cat brought in, don't it?" said she,
still gazing, pale with curiosity.

"I don't know," I said, not knowing what to say; "does she bring in a
great variety?"

"Awful!" said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous
little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break.

The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack.

"Never mind, darlin'," said he; "ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye
'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go
'n' have a nice sail home.

"Ef I ever sees or hears or knows," he added to the photographer,
"anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer
'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on
me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r
wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my
settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon."

The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss
Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the
captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us
on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the "Eliza
Rodgers."

"How shall we get major down the slip?" I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper
anxiously to Miss Pray.

The "slip" was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in
length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth,
green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the
tide, the only way of boarding the "Eliza Rodgers."

The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip.

Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both
sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely
and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from
the wharf.

"Come on, major!" called the captain. "Touch-and-go----"

And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature
who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my
carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the "Eliza Rodgers" waited
below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I
should be up to that much!

Ay, and far mor