oman in the house," declared Mrs Bowldler, and
repeated it for emphasis after the style of the great Hebrew writers.
"Another woman in the house have I will not! What do _you_ say,
Palmerston?"

Palmerston, who had been on the edge of tears for some time, broke down
and fairly blubbered.

"There's a boy!" exclaimed the elder woman. "Mention a little hard work
and he begins to cry."

"I don't believe he's cryin' for that at all," spoke up Fancy.
"Are you, Pammy dear?"

"Nun-nun-No-o!" sobbed Palmerston.

"He can't abide quarrellin'--that's what's the matter. . . . Ah, well!"
sighed Fancy, and fell back on her favourite formula of resignation.
"It'll be all the same a hundred years hence; when we mee-eet," she
chanted, "when we mee-eet, when we mee-eet on that Beyewtiful Shore!
_And_ in the meantime we three have got to sit tight an' watch for an
openin' to teach 'em that their little hands were never made.
No talkin' outside, mind!"

"As if I should!" protested Mrs Bowldler, and added thoughtfully,
"I often wonder what happens to widows."

"They marry again, mostly."

"I mean up there--on the Beautiful Shore, so to speak. They don't marry
again, because the Bible says so: but how some _contrytomps_ is to be
avoided I don't see."

Chiefly through the loyalty of these three, some weeks elapsed before
the breach of friendship between Captain Caius Hocken and Captain Tobias
Hunken became a matter of common talk. Mr Rogers must have had an
inkling; for the pair consulted him on all their business affairs and
investments, and in two or three ships their money had meant a joint
influence on the shareholders' policy. Now, as they came to him
separately, and with suggestions that bore no sign of concerted thought,
so astute an adviser could hardly miss a guess that something was wrong.
Nor did it greatly mend matters that each, on learning the other's wish
upon this or that point where it conflicted with his own, at once made
haste to yield. "If that's how 'Bias looks at it," Cai would say,
"why o' course we'll make it so. I must have misunderstood him:" and
'Bias on his part would as promptly take back a proposal--"Cai thinks
otherwise, eh? Oh, well that settles it! We haven't, as you might say,
threshed it out together, but I leave details to him." "If you call
this a detail--" "Yes, yes: leave it to Cai." Mr Rogers blinked, but
asked no questions and kept his own counsel.

Mr Philp was more dangerou