o win!"

"Aye," responded the other, "and we oughtn't to make a failure either;
for, you know, the old adage has it that, `Fortune favours the brave,'
eh?"

"Yes," said Fritz, the practical. "However, it is in little things that
success is attained, so we must not neglect these."

Nor did they. Indeed, so much did Fritz impress Eric with the value of
carefully considering every petty detail of their outfit, so that they
might not find something omitted at the last moment which would be of
use, that there was danger of their forgetting more important articles--
the "little things," apparently, absorbing all their attention.

So engrossed were they in this enthusiasm for collecting and packing up
the most out-of-the-way trifles which it struck one or other of the two
brothers that they might want--getting these ready, too, for their
departure weeks before the _Pilot's Bride_ could possibly be refitted
for her voyage--that they were the subject of many a joke from the
hospitable household of the little "shanty" on Narraganset Bay.

The captain and Mrs Brown, or else Celia their daughter--a lively
American lassie of Eric's age, who seemed to have taken as great a fancy
to the young sailor as her father had done towards Fritz--would ever be
suggesting the most extraordinary things as likely to "come in handy on
the island," such as a warming pan or a boot-jack; with which latter,
indeed, the skipper gravely presented the elder brother one day, telling
him it would save him time when he was anxious to get on his slippers of
an evening after sealing on the rocks!

But, although they "chaffed" them, the kind people helped them none the
less good-naturedly in completing their equipment, the old captain's
"missis" and his "gal" plying their needles as energetically on their
behalf as Madame Dort and Lorischen would have done in the little house
at home in the Gulden Strasse of Lubeck. The very eagerness and
"thoroughgoingness" of the hopeful young fellows enlisted sympathy for
them, in addition to those good qualities which had already made them
prime favourites.

"Bully for them, old woman," as the skipper said, when talking them over
to his wife. "They're raal grit an' bound to run into port with a fair
wind an' no mistake, you bet; they're such a tarnation go-ahead pair o'
coons, with no empty gas or nonsense about 'em!"

But, full as he was of the venture, and embarking heart and soul into
its details with every