s_ crew!"

"The _Mirabelle_!" Chris exclaimed, "Why--that's the ship in the
bottle!"

"Aye," agreed Cilley, nodding sagely, "The model of it's in a bottle
right enough, since it's meself that made it, the last trip home from
the Chiny Seas."

"You made it _yourself_?" Chris breathed, looking aghast at the
gnarled knotted fingers, thick and roughened by work and weather,
picturing to himself the delicacy of the miniature ship that lay so
snugly in its transparent walls. "How in the world could you get it
inside?" he asked.

Ned wagged his head. "Ah, 'tis a trick and a tedious thing, no
mistaking, but there's time and to spare for it, coming home from
China."

"China? You've been there? What's it like?" Chris wanted to know, his
eyes eager.

Cilley smiled at him, a snaggled-toothed friendly grin. "That's a tale
for another time, my boy, for there's much telling there. You wanted
the story of Becky's fine hat."

"Yes--yes!" Chris urged. "Before she comes back."

"Well, now," began Cilley, "Bein' a member of the _Mirabelle_ and all,
means I see quite a bit of this port when we're home." He looked arch
as if Chris must know the reason for that. "An' seein' as how Mistress
Becky and me are fast friends, well--she's told me a thing or two that
not everyone knows."

He took a pull on the mug and wiped the froth from his lips.

"It seems," he began, "that in her younger days, Mistress Becky had
one craving. She'd seen this hat that she now wears, in a milliner's,
and have it she must.

"Now--" and the sailor leaned forward as the story held his own
interest--"now a hat of that sort costs many a shilling, and Becky
worked and saved for that bonnet for over a year." He eyed Chris again
closely. "If you tell what I tell ye, Chris lad," Cilley conjured him,
"I shall get even with ye, I swear I will! For I would never want to
hurt the feelin's of Becky Boozer, on my oath."

"I'll not tell, sir. Not to anyone," Chris assured him.

Ned Cilley seemed satisfied. "Well now," hunching closer with his
chair, "It seems at long last she paid for that bonnet, and decided to
wear it to the spectacle, that very afternoon."

"The spectacle?" Chris questioned, his forehead wrinkled. "What's
that?"

"Haw--Haw!" cackled Cilley, "You _are_ a country boy! Why--the
_spectacle_, where the players are. The _theatre_--what else?"

"Oh," Chris said shortly, and thought of television and the movies,
and held his tongue. He was beginni