f a
walnut cracked in your teeth when I hear it pronounced," added Flint.
"Now that I know what it is and what it means, I shall take more kindly
to it, though I am afraid we shall get to calling her the Bronxy before
we have done with her, especially if she gets to be a pet, for the name
seems to need another syllable."

"Young men fall in love with girls without regard to their names."

"That's so. A friend of mine in our town in Maine fell in love with a
young lady by the name of Leatherbee; but she was a very pretty girl and
her name was all the objection I had to her," said Flint, chuckling.

"But that was an objection which your friend evidently intended to
remove at no very distant day," suggested Christy.

"Very true; and he did remove it some years ago. What was that noise?"
asked the first lieutenant, suddenly rising from his seat.

Christy heard the sounds at the same moment. He and his companion in the
cabin had been talking about the Scotian and the Arran, and what his
father had said to him about prudence in speaking of his movements came
to his mind. The noise was continued, and he hastened to the door of his
state room, and threw it open. In the room he found Dave hard at work on
the furniture; he had taken out the berth sack, and was brushing out the
inside of the berth. The noise had been made by the shaking of the slats
on which the mattress rested. Davis Talbot, the cabin steward of the
Bronx, had been captured in the vessel when she was run out of Pensacola
Bay some months before. As he was a very intelligent colored man, or
rather mulatto, though they were all the same at the South, the young
commander had selected him for his present service; and he never had
occasion to regret the choice. Dave had passed his time since the Teaser
arrived at New York at Bonnydale, and he had become a great favorite,
not only with Christy, but with all the members of the family.

"What are you about, Dave?" demanded Christy, not a little astonished to
find the steward in his room.

"I am putting the room in order for the captain, sir," replied Dave
with a cheerful smile, such as he always wore in the presence of his
superiors. "I found something in this berth I did not like to see about
a bed in which a gentleman is to sleep, and I have been through it with
poison and a feather; and I will give you the whole southern Confederacy
if you find a single redback in the berth after this."

"I am very glad you hav