A WOMAN!" exclaimed Captain Eri. Then he shook his head solemnly and
added, "There, Jerry! What did I tell you? M'lissy!"

But Captain Perez did not smile.

"I ain't foolin'," he said; "I mean it."

Captain Jerry thought of the spick-and-span days of his wife, dead these
twenty years, and sighed again. "I s'pose we might have a housekeeper,"
he said.

"Housekeeper!" sneered Captain Eri. "Who'd you hire? Perez don't,
seemin'ly, take to M'lissy, and there ain't nobody else in Orham that
you could git, 'less 'twas old A'nt Zuby Higgins, and that would be
actin' like the feller that jumped overboard when his boat sprung a
leak. No, sir! If A'nt Zuby ships aboard here I heave up MY commission."

"Who said anything about A'nt Zuby or housekeepers either?" inquired
Captain Perez. "I said we'd got to have a woman, and we have. One of us
'll have to git married, that's all."

"MARRIED!" roared the two in chorus.

"That's what I said, married, and take the others to board in this
house. Look here now! When a shipwrecked crew's starvin' one of 'em has
to be sacrificed for the good of the rest, and that's what we've got to
do. One of us has got to git married for the benefit of the other two."

Captain Eri shouted hilariously. "Good boy, Perez!" he cried. "Goin' to
be the first offerin'?"

"Not unless it's my luck, Eri. We'll all three match for it, same as we
do 'bout washin' the dishes."

"Where are you goin' to find a wife?" asked Captain Jerry.

"Now that's jest what I'm goin' to show you. I see how things was goin',
and I've been thinkin' this over for a consid'rable spell. Hold on a
minute till I overhaul my kit."

He went into the front bedroom, and through the open door they could see
him turning over the contents of the chest with P. R. in brass nails
on the lid. He scattered about him fish-lines, hooks, lead for sinkers,
oilcloth jackets, whales' teeth, and various other articles, and at
length came back bearing a much-crumpled sheet of printed paper. This he
spread out upon the dining table, first pushing aside the dishes to make
room, and, after adjusting his spectacles, said triumphantly:

"There! There she is! The Nup-ti-al Chime. A Journal of Matrimony. I
see a piece about it in the Herald the other day, and sent a dime for
a sample copy. It's chock-full of advertisements from women that wants
husbands."

Captain Eri put on his spectacles and hitched his chair up to the table.
After giving the pages