ng," says Old Hickory. "True, we haven't been
shipwrecked, or endured hardship, or spilled any gore. But we have
outfaced a lot of ridicule. If the whiskered old sinners who hid away
this stuff had met as much they might have given up piracy in disgust.
Who knows?"

With that Mr. Ellins snips the end from a fat black cigar, jams his
hands in his pockets, and spreads his feet wide apart. He's costumed
in a flannel outing shirt open at the neck, and a pair of khaki
trousers stuffed into hip rubber boots with the tops turned down. Also
his grizzly hair is tousled and his face is well smeared up with soot
or something. Honest, if he'd had a patch over one eye and gold rings
in his ears he could have qualified as a bold, bad buccaneer himself.
Only there's an amiable cut-up twinkle under them shaggy brows of his,
such as I'd never seen there before.

"Killam," says he, "why don't you chortle?"

"I--I beg pardon?" says Rupert.

He's sittin' on a log, busy rollin' a cigarette, and in place of his
usual solemn air he looks satisfied and happy. That's as much as he
can seem to loosen up.

"Great pickled persimmons, man!" snorts Old Hickory. "Let's be human.
Come, we're all tickled to death, aren't we? Let's make a noise about
it, then. Torchy, can't you start something appropriate?"

"Sure!" says I. "How about doin' a war dance? Yuh-huh! Yuh-huh! Get
in step, Vee. Now we're off. Yuh-huh! Yuh-huh!"

"Fine!" says Old Hickory, droppin' in behind Vee and roarin' out the
Sagawa patter like a steam siren. "Yuh-huh! Yuh-huh! Come, Captain.
Fall in, Cornelia. Yuh-huh! Yuh-huh!"

Would you believe it? Well, Auntie does. I never thought it was in
the old girl. But say, there she is, her gray hair streamin' down over
her shoulders, her skirts grabbed up on either side, and lettin' out
the yelps easy and joyous. Even Rupert has to grin and join in.

Round and round that treasure heap we prances, like so many East Side
kids 'round a Maypole in Central Park, with the yuh-huhs comin' faster
and louder, until finally Auntie slumps on the sand and uncorks the
only real genuine laugh I've ever known her to be guilty of. No wonder
Vee stops and rushes over to her.

"Why, Auntie!'" says Vee. "What's the matter?"

"Matter?" says Auntie, breathin' hard and chucklin' in between. "Why,
my dear child, I haven't done anything so absurd as this since--since I
was forty, and--and it has done me a world of good, I'm