," said David, when he had seated himself in the house, "I 've got
bad news to tell you, and I may as well out with it first as last."

"You have n't shipped for another whaling voyage?"

"No; that would be nothing," he said.

Delia stood and looked at him.

"Well," she said, "didn't you get as much as you counted on?"

"Yes,--twenty more."

"It isn't anything about the children? I expect them home every minute."

"No."

"Delia," he said, "you was a great fool ever to have me. You ought to
have taken advice."

"What is the matter?" she said. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I 've lost the money," he said. "The Captain warned me how apt a
seafaring man is to lose money; but I did n't take any heed, and I went
off with Calvin Green--"

"With Calvin Green! What did I tell you!" she said.

"Wait a minute--and I stopped into a jewelry store and bought you a pair
of ear-rings, and I came off and left my wallet on the counter, the way
that fool Joe Bassett did, to Gloucester. When I went back, the rascal
claimed he never saw me before--said he didn't know me from the Prophet
Samuel, as if I was born that minute. And now they'll all say--and it's
true--that I'm a chip of the old block, and that I 'm bound to come out
at the little end. There!" he said, as he opened a little parcel and
took out the earrings. "There 's what 's left of five hundred and twenty
dollars, and you must make the most of 'em. Hold 'em up to the light and
see how handsome they are. I don't know, after all, but they are worth
while for a man to pitch overboard off Cape Horn and harpoon whales two
years for. All is, just tell folks they cost five hundred dollars, and
they 'll be just as good as hen's-egg diamonds.

"In fact, I don't know but I sort o' like the situation," he went on,
in a moment. "It seems sort of natural and home-like. I should have felt
homesick if I 'd really succeeded in getting this place paid for.
'T would have seemed like getting proud, and going back on my own
relations. And then it 'll please everybody to say, 'I told you so.'
There 'll be high sport round town, when it gets out, and we back water
down to the old place.

"Come, say something, Delia!" he said, in a moment. "Why don't you say
something about it? Don't you care that the money's lost, that you stand
there and don't say a word, and look at nothing?"

"I don't want to say anything now," she said, "I want to think."

*****

"Well!" said Captain Bennett, the