The old man had been wheezing and grunting painfully for some minutes,
opening and shutting his hands, and actually scratching the table-cloth
in his distress. At length he broke out, after a long silence.

"Who are ye, I want to know? How come you by these shells? I know
something about what they're wuth--that is--well, I know they aint wuth
what you say they are, well enough; but they air wuth a good deal,--I
know that. What I want to understand is, what you're after here! What do
you want, and why do you show me these things if--if--you come by them
honestly. Hey?"

The Skipper smiled meditatively. "Yes!" he said, "we all like to know
things,--part of our nature, sir--part of our nature. I, now, I like to
know things, too. What you going to do with that boy, Mr. Scrape? I like
to know that. You tell me, and perhaps you hear something about the
shells, who know?"

The old man's face darkened into a very ugly look.

"My name is Scraper, thank ye, not Scrape!" he said, dryly; "and as for
the boy, I don't know exactly where you come in there."

The Skipper nodded. "True!" he said, tracing with his finger the fine
lines of the Voluta Aulica; "you do not know where I come in there. In
us both, knowledge has a limit, Mr. Scraper; yet I at the least am
acquaint with your name. It is a fine name you have there,--Endymion!
You should be a person of poetry, with this and your love for shells,
hein? You love, without doubt, to gaze on the moon, Sir Scraper? You
feel with her a connection, yes?"

"What the dickens are you talking about?" asked the old gentleman,
testily. "How much do you want to swindle me out of for this Junonia,
hey? not that I shall buy it, mind ye!"

"Three hundred!" said the Skipper; "and a bargain at that!"

CHAPTER V.

MYSTERY.

John was at work in the garden. At least, so it would have appeared to
an ordinary observer; in reality he was carrying on a sanguinary combat,
and dealing death on every side. His name was George Washington, and he
was at Bunker Hill (where he certainly had no business to be), and the
British were intrenched behind the cabbages. "They've just got down into
the ground, they are so frightened!" he said to himself, pausing to
straighten his aching back, and toss the red curls out of his eyes. "See
'em, all scrooched down, with their feet in the earth, trying to make
believe they grow there! But I'll have 'em out! Whack! there goes the
general. Come out, I say!" H