s of note paper were on the table and floor, and Lorenzo,
who was purring restfully upon the discarded jackets of the two
mariners, alone seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Well, you fellers look as if you'd had a rough v'yage," commented
Captain Eri, slipping out of his own jacket and pulling his chair up
beside those of his friends. "What's the trouble?"

"Gosh, Eri, I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed Captain Perez, drawing the
hand, just referred to, across his forehead and thereby putting
that portion of his countenance into mourning. "How do you spell
conscientious?"

"I don't, unless it's owner's orders," was the answer. "What do you want
to spell it for?"

"We've writ much as four hundred advertisements, I do believe!" said
Captain Jerry, "and there ain't one of them fit to feed to a pig. Perez
here, he's got such hifalutin' notions, that nothin' less than a circus
bill 'll do him. _I_ don't see why somethin' plain and sensible like
'Woman wanted to do dishes and clean house for three men,' wouldn't be
all right; but no, it's got to have more fancy trimmin's than a Sunday
bunnit. Foolishness, I call it."

"You'd have a whole lot of women answerin' that advertisement, now
wouldn't you?" snorted Captain Perez hotly. "'To do dishes for three
men!' That's a healthy bait to catch a wife with, ain't it? I can see
'em comin'. I cal'late you'd stay single till Jedgment, and then you
wouldn't git one. No, sir! The thing to do is to be sort of soft-soapy
and high-toned. Let 'em think they're goin' to git a bargain when
they git you. Make believe it's goin' to be a privilege to git sech a
husband."

"Well, 'tis," declared the sacrifice indignantly. "They might git a
dum-sight worse one."

"I cal'late that's so, Jerry," said Captain Eri. "Still, Perez ain't
altogether wrong. Guess you'd better keep the dishwashin' out of it.
I know dishwashin' would never git ME; I've got so I hate the sight of
soap and hot water as bad as if I was a Portugee. Pass me that pen."

Captain Perez gladly relinquished the writing materials, and Captain
Eri, after two or three trials, by which he added to the paper
decorations of the floor, produced the following:

"Wife Wanted--By an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits. Must be willing
to Work and Keep House shipshape and aboveboard. No sea-lawyers need
apply. Address--Skipper, care the Nuptial Chime, Boston, Mass."

The line relating to sea-lawyers was insisted upon by Captain Jerry.
"Tha