ead. "You said Cap'n
Zingall was coming aboard. How did we get here? Where am I?"

In a hurried, breathless fashion the skipper told him, the mate
regarding him the while with a stare of fixed incredulity.

"I can't understand it," he said at length. "My mind's a perfect blank."

"A perfect blank," said Mrs. Bradd, cheerfully. It might have been
accident, but she tapped her pocket as she spoke, and the outwitted
mate bit his lip as he realised his blunder, and turned to the door. The
couple watched him as he slowly passed up the street.

"It's most extraordinary," said the skipper; "the most extraordinary
case I ever heard of."

"So it is," said his wife, "and what's more extraordinary still for you,
Ben, you're going to church on Sunday, and what's more extraordinary
even than that, you are going to put two golden sovereigns in the
plate."

TWIN SPIRITS

The "Terrace," consisting of eight gaunt houses, faced the sea, while
the back rooms commanded a view of the ancient little town some half
mile distant. The beach, a waste of shingle, was desolate and bare
except for a ruined bathing machine and a few pieces of linen drying in
the winter sunshine. In the offing tiny steamers left a trail of smoke,
while sailing-craft, their canvas glistening in the sun, slowly melted
from the sight. On all these things the "Terrace" turned a stolid eye,
and, counting up its gains of the previous season, wondered whether
it could hold on to the next. It was a discontented "Terrace," and
had become prematurely soured by a Board which refused them a pier, a
band-stand, and illuminated gardens.

From the front windows of the third storey of No. 1 Mrs. Cox, gazing out
to sea, sighed softly.

The season had been a bad one, and Mr. Cox had been even more
troublesome than usual owing to tightness in the money market and the
avowed preference of local publicans for cash transactions to assets
in chalk and slate. In Mr. Cox's memory there never had been such a
drought, and his crop of patience was nearly exhausted.

He had in his earlier days attempted to do a little work, but his health
had suffered so much that his wife had become alarmed for his safety.
Work invariably brought on a cough, and as he came from a family whose
lungs had formed the staple conversation of their lives, he had been
compelled to abandon it, and at last it came to be understood that if he
would only consent to amuse himself, and not get into trouble,