roat whisker and looking rather shamefaced. "You
see, M'lissy Busteed dropped in a few minutes this mornin' while you
fellers was out and--"

Both Captain Eri and Captain Jerry set up a hilarious shout.

"Haw! haw!" roared the former, slapping his knee. "I wouldn't be so
fascinatin' as you be for no money, Perez. She'll have you yit; you
can't git away! But say, I don't wonder you got to thinkin' 'bout the
grave. Ten minutes of M'lissy gits me thinkin' of things way t'other
side of that!"

"Aw, belay there, Eri" protested Captain Perez testily. "'Twan't my
fault. I didn't see her comin' or I'd have got out of sight. She was
cruisin' 'round the way she always does with a cargo of gabble, and, she
put in here to unload. Talk! I never heard a woman talk the way she can!
She'd be a good one to have on board in a calm. Git her talkin' abaft
the mains'l and we'd have a twenty-knot breeze in a shake."

"What was it this time?" asked Captain Jerry.

"Oh, a little of everything. She begun about the 'beautiful' sermon that
Mr. Perley preached at the last 'Come-Outers'' meetin'. That was what
started me thinkin' about the grave, I guess. Then she pitched into
Seth Wingate's wife for havin' a new bunnit this season when the old one
wan't ha'f wore out. She talked for ten minutes or so on that, and then
she begun about Parker's bein' let go over at the cable station and
about the new feller that's been signed to take his place. She's all for
Parker. Says he was a 'perfectly lovely' man and that 'twas outrageous
the way he was treated, and all that sort of thing."

"She ain't the only one that thinks so," observed Captain Jerry.
"There's a heap of folks in this town that think Parker was a mighty
fine feller."

"Yes," said Captain Eri, "and it's worth while noticin' who they be.
Perez' friend, M'lissy, thinks so, and 'Squealer' Wixon and his gang
think so, and 'Web' Saunders thinks so, and a lot more like them. Parker
was TOO good a feller, that's what was the matter with him. His talk
always reminded me of washday at the poorhouse, lots of soft soap with
plenty of lye in it."

"Well, M'lissy says that the men over to the station--all except
Langley, of course--are mad as all git-out because Parker was let
go, and she says somebody told somebody else, and somebody else told
somebody else, and somebody else told HER--she says it come reel
straight--that the men are goin' to make it hot for the new feller when
he comes. She s