like gimlets,
and there was the kind of pause when pins drop.

"A very fine-appearing old gentleman," says I, starting in spite of
myself when I saw it was a picture of Old Dibs.

"Give us a squint, Bill," says Tom, taking it out of my hands as bold as
brass. And then: "I've seen that face somewhere; I know I have. Lord
bless me, wherever could it have been?" And he looked at it, puzzled and
recollectful, me holding my breath, and the rest of them giving a little
jump in their seats.

Tom brought his fist down on the table with a blow that made the glasses
ring.

"It was on the _Belle Brandon_!" he cried out, very excited. "A stout
old party, fair complected, who played the flute."

"That's him!" cried Phelps, half-starting from his chair.

"I reckon he must be up Jaluit way," said Tom coolly, "Captain Cole
being bound for the Marshalls at the time."

I could feel them shooting glances all around us.

"It's remarkable your friend here doesn't remember him," says the one
they called Nettleship, indicating me with the heel of his glass.

"I didn't happen to get aboard the _Brandon_," says I. "What was I
doing, Tom? I disremember."

"That was when you was laid up with boils," says Tom, as ready as
lightning.

"So it was," says I.

"You didn't happen to pass any talk with him?" asks Mr. Phelps of Tom.

"Nothing particular," says Tom.

"Even a little might help us," says Mr. Phelps. "See if you can't
remember."

"Oh! he said he was looking for a quiet place to end his days in,"
answers Tom.

"I wonder that this here island wasn't to his taste," says Mr.
Nettleship, with a quick look.

"Oh, it was," says Tom unabashed, "only Captain Cole broke in and said
he knew a better."

By this time nearly all our heads were touching over the table, except
the one they called the bookkeeper, who had run for a chart.

"Did he call the island by any particular name?" inquires Mr. Phelps.

"I think he said Pleasant Island," says Tom, "because I mind the old
gentleman saying it must be a pleasant place with such a name and I said
I had been there, but the holding ground was poor."

The bookkeeper laid the chart on the table, and the captain found
Pleasant Island with his thumb.

He was about to say it was a ten days' run leeward, when he broke off
sudden with "ouch" instead, being kicked hard under the table, and
pretending it was the beginning of a cough instead.

"I'm looking for a change of weather at the f