ether and
finish together."

Captain Runacles fished a silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket
and blew on it shrilly. The blue and white door of the pavilion was
opened, and a slight old man in a blue livery appeared on the step
and came ambling down the path. The weight of an enormous head, on
the top of which his grey wig seemed to be balanced rather than
fitted, bowed him as he moved. But he drew himself up to salute the
two captains.

"Glad to welcome ye, Captain John, along with master here. Hey, but
you've aged--the pair o' ye."

"Simeon," said his master, "draw us some beer. Aged, you say?"

"Aye--aged, aged: a trivial, remediless complaint, common to folk.
Valiant deeds ye'll do yet, my masters; but though I likes to be
hopeful, the door's closin' on ye both. Ye be staid to the eye,
noticeably staid. The first sign o't, to be marked at forty or so,
is when a woman's blush pales before wine held to the light; the
second, and that, too, ye've passed--"

"Hurry, you old fool! As it happens you've been proving us a pair of
raw striplings."

"Hee-hee," tittered the old man sardonically, and catching up the
tankards trotted back to the house, with his master at his heels.
Captain Barker, left alone, rearranged his neckcloth, contemplated
his crooked legs for a moment with some disgust, and began to trot up
and down the grass-plot, whistling the while with great energy and no
regard for tune.

The pair reappeared in the doorway--Captain Runacles bearing an
hour-glass and a volume of "Purchas," and Simeon the tankards,
crowned with a creamy froth.

"Have you picked your quill?"

"Yes," answered the hunchback, settling himself on top of the brown
folio. "No, 'tis a split one."

The pens were old, and had lain with the ink dry upon them ever since
the outbreak of the Dutch War. The two men were half a minute in
finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the
hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the
pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons
on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded vane above them.

CHAPTER II.

THE DICE-BOX.

That same afternoon, at four o'clock, Captain Barker and Captain
Runacles entered Harwich and advanced up the West Street side by
side. Each had a bulky letter in his side-pocket, and the address
upon each letter was the same. They talked but little.

On the right-hand side of West Street,