hat familiar with
this--er--wicked resort?"

"Not the one you're talkin' about," says I. "I've been goin' to Coney
every year since I was old enough to toddle; and I'll admit there has
been seasons when some parts of it was kind of tough; but as a general
proposition it never looked wicked to me."

That kind of puzzles the Bishop. He says he's always understood that
the island was sort of a vent hole for the big sulphur works. Aunt
Isabella is dead sure of it too, and hints that maybe I ain't much of a
judge. Anyway, she thinks I'd be a good guide for a place of that
kind, and prods the Bishop on to urge me to go.

"Well," says I, "just for a flier, I will."

So, as soon as I've changed my clothes, we starts for the iron
steamboats, and plants ourselves on the upper deck. And say, we was a
sporty lookin' bunch--I don't guess! There was the Bishop, in his
little flat hat and white choker,--you couldn't mistake what he
was,--and Aunt Isabella, with her grey hair and her grey and white
costume, lookin' about as giddy as a marble angel on a tombstone. Then
there's Dennis, who has put on the black whip cord Prince Albert he
always wears when he's visitin' sick friends or attendin' funerals.
The only festive lookin' point about him was the russet coloured throat
hedge he wears in place of a necktie.

Honest, I felt sorry for them suds slingers that travels around the
deck singin' out, "Who wants the waiter?" Every time one would come
our way he'd get as far as "Who wants----" and then he'd switch off
with an "Ah, chee!" and go away disgusted.

All the way down, the old girl has her eye out for wickedness. The
sight of Adolph, the grocery clerk, dippin' his beak into a mug of
froth, moves her to sit up and give him the stony glare; while a
glimpse of a young couple snugglin' up against each other along the
rail almost gives her a spasm.

"Such brazen depravity!" says she to the Bishop.

By the time we lands at the iron pier she has knocked Coney so much
that I has worked up a first class grouch.

"Come on!" says I. "Let's have Maggie's address and get through with
this rescue business before all you good folks is soggy with sin."

Then it turns out she ain't got any address at all. The most she knows
is that Maggie's somewhere on the island.

"Well," I shouts into the tube, "Coney's something of a place, you see!
What's your idea of findin' her?"

"We must search," says Aunt Isabella, prompt and decid