h some chappies, and
do the dancing rooms and bars, and that, and wouldn't go 'ome till
morning, till daylight doth appear. And the next day I'd have
water-cresses, 'am, muffin, and fresh butter; wouldn't I just, O my!"

The clerk was interrupted by a fresh attack of coughing.

"Well, now, I'll tell you what I would do," said the captain: "I would
have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen
cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered
tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey
and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine-merchant's and get a dozen of
champagne, and a dozen of some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong,
something in the port or madeira line, the best in the store. Then I'd
bear up for a toy-store, and lay out twenty dollars in assorted toys for
the pickaninnies; and then to a confectioner's and take in cakes and
pies and fancy bread, and that stuff with the plums in it; and then to a
newsagency and buy all the papers, all the picture ones for the kids,
and all the story papers for the old girl about the Earl discovering
himself to Anna-Mariar and the escape of the Lady Maude from the private
madhouse; and then I'd tell the fellow to drive home."

"There ought to be some syrup for the kids," suggested Herrick; "they
like syrup."

"Yes, syrup for the kids, red syrup at that!" said the captain. "And
those things they pull at, and go pop, and have measly poetry inside.
And then I tell you we'd have a thanksgiving-day and Christmas-tree
combined. Great Scott, but I would like to see the kids! I guess they
would light right out of the house when they saw daddy driving up. My
little Adar--"

The captain stopped sharply.

"Well, keep it up!" said the clerk.

"The damned thing is, I don't know if they ain't starving!" cried the
captain.

"They can't be worse off than we are, and that's one comfort," returned
the clerk. "I defy the devil to make me worse off."

It seemed as if the devil heard him. The light of the moon had been some
time cut off and they had talked in darkness. Now there was heard a
roar, which drew impetuously nearer; the face of the lagoon was seen to
whiten; and before they had staggered to their feet, a squall burst in
rain upon the outcasts. The rage and volume of that avalanche one must
have lived in the tropics to conceive; a man panted in its assault as he
might pant under a shower-bath; and the world see