were wandering.
Your treatment is a trifle rough, but honest. Are those
extraordinary people gone?"

"Iss, sir; here they were, but gone--like Jemmy Rule's larks."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Figger o' speech, sir. They be gone right enough--Adm'ral Buzza in
full fig, and a row o' darters in jallishy buff. I sent 'em 'bout
their bus'ness. Look 'ee here, sir: ef you'll promise to sit quiet
and keep your wits at home, I'll run down to town for a happord o'
tar."

"Tar, Caleb?"

"Iss, sir, tar!" and with this Caleb turned on his heel and strode
away across the shingle. In a moment or two he had untied his boat
from the little quay, and was pulling down towards Troy Town.

When he returned, it was with a huge board, a pot of tar, and a
brush. He looked anxiously about the beach, but Mr. Fogo was nowhere
to be seen. "Drownded hissel'," was Caleb's first thought, but his
ear caught the sound of hammering up at the house. He walked indoors
to see that all was right.

"How be feelin'?" he asked, putting his head in at the dining-room
door.

Mr. Fogo laid down the mallet with which he had been nailing a loose
plank in the flooring, and looked up.

"All right, Caleb, thank you."

"I was afear'd you might be none compass agen."

"What?"

"None compass--Greek for 'mazed.' Good-bye for the present, sir."

Caleb borrowed a hammer, a nail or two, and a spade, and descended
again to the beach. Here he chose a spot carefully, and began to dig
a large hole in the shingle. This finished, he turned to the board,
and spent some time with the brush in his hand and his head on one
side, thinking. Then he began to paint vigorously.

Half-an-hour later, a tall post with a board on top stood on the
beach at Kit's House. On the board, in letters six inches long, was
tarred the following inscription:--

TAKE NOTICE.

ALL WIMMEN
FOUND TRAPESING ON THIS
BEECH WILL BE DEALT
WITH ACCORDING
TO THE LAW.

Above this notice jauntily rested the Admiral's cocked-hat, which had
drifted ashore further up on the shingle--an awful witness to the
earnestness of the threat and the vanity of human greatness.

Caleb stood in front of his handiwork and gazed at it with honest
pride for some minutes; then went into the house to fetch Mr. Fogo
forth to look. He was absent for some minutes. When h