ne
o'clock.

"Judah," he said, "I've got to run in to the Harbor a minute. Drive me
around to the side door, will you? And then wait there for me, that's a
good fellow."

So, leaving the Foam Flake and its pilot to doze comfortably in the soft
silence of the summer evening, Sears--after Judah had, as was his
custom, lifted him down from the wagon seat and handed him his
cane--plodded to the side door of the Harbor and knocked. Mrs. Brackett
answered the knock.

"Why, how d'ye do, Cap'n Kendrick?" she said, graciously. "Come right
in. We wasn't expectin' you. You don't very often call evenin's. Come
right in. I guess you know everybody here."

He did, of course, for the group in the back sitting room was made up of
the regular guests. He shook hands with them all, including Miss
Snowden, who greeted him with queenly condescension, and little Mrs.
Tidditt, who jerked his arm up and down as if it was a pump handle, and
affirmed that she was glad to see him, adding, as an after thought,
"Even if I did see you afore to-day."

"Now you are just in time, Cap'n Kendrick," said Miss Elvira. "We are
going to have our usual little 'sing' before we go to bed. Desire--Miss
Peasley--plays the melodeon for us and we sing a few selections, sacred
selections usually, it is our evening custom. Do join us, Cap'n
Kendrick. We should love to have you."

The captain thanked them, but declined. He had run in only for a moment,
he said, a matter of business, and must not stop.

"Besides, I shouldn't be any help," he added. "I can't sing a note."

Miss Snowden would have uttered some genteel protest, but Mrs. Tidditt
spoke first.

"Humph! _That_ won't make any difference," she announced. "Neither can
any of the rest of us--not the right notes."

Possibly Elvira, or Susanna, might have retorted. The former looked as
if she were about to, but Mrs. Aurora Chase came forward.

"And it wasn't more'n ha'f past six neither," she declared with
conviction.

Just why or when it was half past six, or what had happened at that
time, or what fragment of conversation Aurora's impaired hearing had
caught which led her to think this happening was being discussed, the
captain was destined never to learn. For at that instant Miss Berry came
into the room, entering from the hall.

"Who is it?" she asked. "Why, good evening, Cap'n Kendrick."

She was what two thirds of Bayport would have called "dressed up." That
is to say, she was wearing a sim