as good. And when you believe that
way, and a man comes along and begins to praise your vessel like that,
whether you like his sail plans or not, why you just naturally can't
help warming up to him. We took a walk up the street together.

And a master and a crew that knew how to handle her, too, Miller goes
on. Now I blinked a little at that, straight to my face as it was, but
after two or three more drinks I says to myself: "Oh, hell, what's the
good o' suspectin' everybody that pays a compliment of trying to heave
twine over you?" We got pretty friendly, and, talking about one thing
and another, he finally asked me if I ever had a notion of selling my
vessel. I only smiled at him, and asked him if he had any idea what she
cost to build. I told him then. Fourteen thousand dollars to the day of
her trial trip, and all the money my wife and I had in the world had
gone into her. He had no idea she cost so much; but, on reflection, it
must be so--of a certainty yes. A splen-did, a su-pairb vessel, so swift
to sail, so perfect to manoeuvre. If he himself possessed such an
enchanting vessel--well, he could use her to much profit. There was a
way.

He said that so slyly that I had to ask him what that way was. He
winked. "I deal in wines--what way can it be?" And, of course, I winked
back to show that I was a deep one too. It's wonderful what things a man
c'n get up to wind'ard of you after he's half filled you up. Well, no
more then, but we left our caffay for a walk around the port, me looking
for a little souvenir in the jewelry line for the baby. Christmas was
comin', and though I didn't expect to be home till after New Year's,
still I wanted the wife to know I hadn't forgotten the baby.

I was tellin' that to Miller, and a little more about them, of how I
hadn't been but a couple of years married, and how I kissed her and the
baby good-by on the steps, and her tellin' me the last thing not to go
pilin' the vessel up on the rocks anywhere, that the baby's fortune was
in her now, and so on.

Well, sir, that farewell scene, that adieu, was too touching for him--he
insisted on picking out the souvenir himself, and he picked out a good
one, a pretty brooch to fasten the baby's little collar, and he paid for
it--forty francs--and I just had to take it.

Well, we had another drink and parted, me not expecting to see any more
of him; but that night as I was down on the dock hailing the vessel for
a dory to go aboard, a man