. I'd like to take home a picture
of this place to Theophilus Kenney. Theoph's been raisin' hob because
the Odd Fellows built on to their buildin'. He said one room was enough
for any society. 'Twould be, if we was all his kind of society. Theoph's
so small he could keep house in a closet. He's always hollerin'
in meetin' about his soul. I asked the minister if it didn't seem
ridic'lous for Kenney to make such a big noise over such a little thing.
This where we get off?"

The dining room was a large and ornate apartment. Captain Elisha, when
he first entered it, seemed about to ask another question, but choked
it off and remained silent. Sylvester chose a table in a retired corner,
and they sat down.

"Now, Captain Warren," said the host, "what will you eat?"

Captain Elisha shook his head.

"You do the orderin'," he replied dryly; "I'll just set and be thankful,
like the hen that found the china doorknob. Anything that suits you will
do me, I guess."

The lawyer, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his companion, gave
his orders, and the waiter brought first a bit of caviar on toast. If
Sylvester expected this delicacy to produce astonished comments, he was
disappointed.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Captain Elisha. "I declare, you take me back a
long ways, Mr. Sylvester. Caviar! Well, well! Why, I haven't ate this
since I used to go to Cronstadt. At the American consul's house there we
had it often enough. Has a kind of homey taste even yet. That consul was
a good feller. He and I were great friends.

"I met him a long spell after that, when I was down in Mexico," he
went on. "He'd made money and was down on a vacation. My ship was at
Acapulco, and he and I used to go gunnin' together, after wild geese
and such. Ho! ho! I remember there was a big, pompous critter of an
Englishman there. Mind you, I'm not talkin' against the English. Some of
the best men I ever met were English, and I've stood back to back with
a British mate on a Genoa wharf when half of Italy was hoppin' around
makin' proclamations that they was goin' to swallow us alive. And,
somehow or 'nother, they didn't. Took with prophetic indigestion, maybe.

"However, this Englishman at Acapulco was diff'rent. He was so swelled
with importance that his back hollered in like Cape Cod Bay on the map.
His front bent out to correspond, though, so I cal'late he averaged up
all right. Well, he heard about what a good--that I was pretty lucky
when it come to s