mor,
and, stealing out from a shady corner of the court, sold us seven little
red and black liquorice-seed for fourpence,--the worst swindle that had
been worked on us yet.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. CHIPPERTON KEEPS PERFECTLY COOL.

It's of no use to deny the fact that Nassau was a pretty dull place,
just about this time. At least Corny and I found it so, and I don't
believe young Mr. Colbert was very happy, for he didn't look it. It's
not to be supposed that our quarrel affected the negroes, or the sky, or
the taste of bananas; but the darkeys didn't amuse me, and my
recollection of those days is that they were cloudy, and that I wasn't a
very good customer down in the market-house by the harbor, where we used
to go and buy little fig-bananas, which they didn't have at the hotel,
but which were mighty good to eat.

Colbert and I still kept up a frigid reserve toward each other. He
thought, I suppose, that I ought to speak first, because I was the
older, and I thought that he ought to speak first because he was the
younger.

One evening, I went up into my room, having absolutely nothing else to
do, and there I found Colbert, writing. I suppose he was writing a
letter, but there was no need of doing this at night, as the mail would
not go out for several days, and there would be plenty of time to write
in the daytime. He hadn't done anything but lounge about for two or
three days. Perhaps he came up here to write because he had nothing else
to do.

There was only one table, and I couldn't write if I had wanted to, so I
opened my trunk and began to put some of my things in order. We had
arranged, before we had fallen out, that we should go home on the next
steamer, and Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were going too. We had been in
Nassau nearly a month, and had seen about as much as was to be seen--in
an ordinary way. As for me, I couldn't afford to stay any longer, and
that had been the thing that had settled the matter, as far as Colbert
and I were concerned. But now he might choose to stay, and come home by
himself. However, there was no way of my knowing what he thought, and I
supposed that I had no real right to make him come with me. At any rate,
if I had, I didn't intend to exercise it.

While I was looking over the things in my trunk, I came across the box
of dominoes that Corny had given us to remember her by. It seemed like a
long time ago since we had been sitting together on the water-battery at
St. Augusti