nd carriage on to the
barn floor.

"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out."

At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity.

As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin
seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've
been to Boston!"

"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo,
but he was unconscionably pleased.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that
's whar' ye been."

"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain
Pharo.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head
and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been
a-whitewashin'!"

This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said
our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb
'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer
yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!"

Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my
physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he
affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other.

"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he
cried--though I had never gazed upon his face before!

His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled
and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I
do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these
Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the
blue above.

"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know,"
sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye
reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young
lawn-tennis shu's, you!"

I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of
buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant
sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged
in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate.

We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one
of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly
in his claw.

"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is
dry!"

"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad n