wn on the wharf stringer dangling his feet and watching them
intently. Presently the mate appeared on the poop, smoking a cigar. He
looked at Tom critically for a moment or so, and then said--

"Looking for a ship, young feller?"

The moment Tom heard him speak, he jumped to his feet, for he knew the
voice, last heard when the possessor of it was mate of the island
trading schooner _Sadie Caller_, a year before in Samoa.

"Is that you, Bannister?" he cried.

"Reckon 'taint no one else, young feller. Why, Tom Denison, is it you?
Step right aboard."

Tom was on the poop in an instant, the mate coming to him with
outstretched hand.

"What's the matter, Tom? Broke?"

"Stony!"

"Sit down here and tell me all about it. I heard you had left the
_Palestine_. Say, sling that dirty old pipe overboard, and take one of
these cigars. The skipper will be on deck presently, and the sight of it
would rile him terrible. He hez his new wife aboard, and she considers
pipes ez low-down."

Tom laughed as he thought of Mrs. Aubrey, and flung his clay over the
side. "What ship is this, Bannister?"

"The _J.W. Seaver_, of 'Frisco. We're from the Gilbert Islands with a
cargo of copra."

"Who is your supercargo?"

"Haven't got one. Can't get one here, either. Say, Tom, you're the man.
The captain will jump at getting you! Since he married he considers his
life too valuable to be trusted among natives, and funks at going ashore
and doing supercargo's work. Now you come below, and I'll rake out
enough money to get you a high-class suit of store clothes and shiny
boots. Then you come back to dinner. I'll talk to him between then and
now. He knows a lot about you. I'll tell him that since you left the
_Palestine_ you've been touring your native country to 'expand your
mind.' _She's_ Boston, as ugly as a brown stone jug, and highly
intellectual. _He's_ all right, and as good a sailor-man as ever trod a
deck, but _she's_ boss, runs the ship, and looks after the crew's
morals. Thet's why we're short-handed. But she'll take to you like
lightning--when she hears that you've been 'expanding your mind.' Buy a
second-hand copy of Longfellow's, poems, and tell her that it has been
your constant companion in all your wanderings among vicious cannibals,
and she'll just decorate your cabin like a prima-donna's boudoir, darn
your socks, and make you read some of her own poetry."

That afternoon, Mr. Thomas Denison, clean-shirted and looking emin