hed turkeys," I says, getting
impatient, "I'll risk your making good. I wa'n't a first mate, shipping
fo'mast hands ten years, for nothing. I can generally tell beet greens
from cabbage without waiting to smell 'em cooking. And as for her, it
seems to me that a girl who thinks enough of a feller to run away from
him so's he won't spile his future, won't like him no less for being
willing to work and wait for her. You stay here and think it over. I'm
going out for a spell."

When I come back Jonesy was ready for me.

"Mr. Wingate," says he, "it's a deal. I'm going to go you, though I
think you're plunging on a hundred-to-one shot. Some day I'll tell you
more about myself, maybe. But now I'm going to take your advice and
the position. I'll do my best, and I must say you're a brick. Thanks
awfully."

"Good enough!" I says. "Now you go and tell her, and I'll write the
letter to Dillaway."

So the next forenoon Peter T. Brown was joyful all up one side because
Mabel had said she'd stay, and mournful all down the other because his
pet college giant had quit almost afore he started. I kept my mouth
shut, that being the best play I know of, nine cases out of ten.

I went up to the depot with Jonesy to see him off.

"Good-by, old man," he says, shaking hands. "You'll write me once in a
while, telling me how she is, and--and so on?"

"Bet you!" says I. "I'll keep you posted up. And let's hear how you
tackle the Consolidated Cash business."

July and the first two weeks in August moped along and everything at the
Old Home House kept about the same. Mabel was in mighty good spirits,
for her, and she got prettier every day. I had a couple of letters from
Jones, saying that he guessed he could get bookkeeping through his skull
in time without a surgical operation, and old Dillaway was down over one
Sunday and was preaching large concerning the "find" my candidate was
for the Providence branch. So I guessed I hadn't made no mistake.

I had considerable fun with Cap'n Jonadab over his not landing a rich
husband for the Seabury girl. Looked like the millionaire crop was going
to be a failure that summer.

"Aw, belay!" says he, short as baker's pie crust. "The season ain't over
yet. You better take a bath in the salt mack'rel kag; you're too fresh
to keep this hot weather."

Talking "husband" to him was like rubbing pain-killer on a scalded pup,
so I had something to keep me interested dull days. But one morning he
comes to