rocer-captain looked at me for a moment, with his eyes half shut;
then he set down on the pier a basket which had been hanging on his arm,
and, putting both hands in his pockets, stared steadfastly at me.

"Do you know," he remarked presently, "that that 'ere proposition of
yours puts me in mind of a story I heard of a California man and a New
York man. The California man had come East to spend the winter, and the
New York man was a business acquaintance o' his. The California man
called at the New York man's office before business hours; and when he
found the New York man hadn't come down town yet, he went up town to see
him at his house. It was a mighty fine house, and the New York man,
being proud of it, took the California man all over it. 'Look here,'
said the California man, 'what will you take for this house, furniture
and all, just as it stands?' 'I'll take a hundred and twenty thousand
dollars,' said the New York man. 'Does that include all the odds and
ends,' asked the California man,--'old magazines, umbrellas, needles and
pins, empty bottles, photographs, candlesticks, Japanese fans, coal
ashes, and all that kind of thing, that make a house feel like a home?
My family's comin' on from California with nothin' but their clothes,
and I want a house they can go right into and feel at home, even to the
cold victuals for a beggar, if one happens to come along.' 'If I throw
in the odds and ends, it will be one hundred and twenty-five thousand,'
said the New York man. 'That's all right,' said the California man, 'and
my family will arrive, with their clothes, on the train that gets here
at 6.20 this afternoon; so if your family can get out of the house
before that time, I'm ready to pay the money, cash down.' 'All right,'
said the New York man, 'I'll see that they do it.' And at ten minutes
after six the New York family went out with their clothes to a hotel,
and at twenty minutes of seven the California family came to the house
with their clothes, and found everything all ready for 'em, the servants
havin' agreed to stay at California wages.

"Now, then," continued Captain Jabez, "I don't want to hurt nobody's
feelin's, and I wouldn't say one word that would make the smallest
infant think less of itself than it did afore I spoke, but it does
strike me that that there proposition of yours is a good deal like the
California man's offer to the New York man."

"Well," said I, "that turned out very well. Each got what