e uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our
presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon
afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the
added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our
din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice.

"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our
general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was
thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo!
hohum! Wal, wal--

[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass--'"]

"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear.

"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his
place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"--he
put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match.

Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them
back.

"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!"

Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his
account nerved him.

"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar
she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an'
the ever-lastin' h'ist!"

A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs.
Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of
disdain.

"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said
she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?"

"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated,"
replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o'
them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster
onto the slack o' yer britches!"

Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further
aggravation to the dilemma.

"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs.
Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he
gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and
she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment.

But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin
horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as
sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy
at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenanc