t hour in the evening, for by this time it
was ten o'clock; but it so happened that he had time to digest his
supper before he put himself in the way of dreaming.

Having satisfied his hunger, he felt entirely satisfied with himself,
and especially with the person or persons who had fitted out the yacht
in the commissary department. Taking his lantern, he crawled over the
boxes to the after part of the cabin, where there was space enough for
him to sit comfortably. He looked at the boxes, and wondered what was in
them. We do not know that he had more curiosity than boys in general;
but he felt that a knowledge of their contents might enable him to
establish another theory in regard to the previous history of the yacht.
He had seen a shingling hatchet in the cook-room, used for splitting up
the kindling wood. He went for it, and, with no great difficulty, opened
one of the boxes. It was filled with bottles, packed in straw, and each
one enclosed in a curious case made of the same material. He slipped one
of the bottles out of its casing. It was labeled "JAMES HENNESSY &
CO.--COGNAC." The name of the firm, so well known to old topers and
moderate drinkers, afforded him no light; but he knew that "Cognac"
meant brandy.

[Illustration]

"Oho! aha!" said Little Bobtail, knowingly; "I smell a mice now. This
boat wasn't used for a pleasure party."

He had heard about those mysterious custom-house inspectors and
detectives, who poke their noses into grocery stores, cellars, and all
the sly places where contraband goods were supposed to be concealed.
Promptly he arrived at the conclusion that the brandy in the yacht had
come "thus far into the bowels of the land" without paying its respects
to the custom-house, or any of the heavy duties which go to support the
army and navy, and a host of beneficent institutions which make our
country "the land of the free and the home of the brave," and the
collection of which affords a multitude of officials an opportunity to
steal. But Little Bobtail did not trouble himself to discuss any of the
vexed questions about free trade and tariff, or even to weigh carefully
the immorality of smuggling.

Our hero did not believe in brandy, abstractly or concretely. It was
liquor, and liquor had been a curse to his home, a curse to his mother,
and a curse to himself; and he was tempted to take the boxes on deck,
open them, and spill the contents of the bottles into the sea.
Possibly--not probabl