red Lodloe. "Have you any young ones?"

"Five," answered the man.

"And how do you stop them when they howl like that?"

"I leave that to the old woman," was the answer, "and when she's heard
enough of it she spanks 'em."

Lodloe shook his head. That method did not suit him.

"If you'd run its wagon round the deck," said another man, "perhaps that
would stop it. I guess you was never left alone with it before."

Lodloe made no reply to this supposition, but began to wheel the
carriage around the deck. Still the baby yelled and kicked. An elderly
gentleman who had been reading a book went below.

"If you could feed it," said one of the men who had spoken before, "that
might stop it, but the best thing you can do is to take it down to its
mother."

[Illustration: ON DECK.]

Lodloe was annoyed. He had not yet arranged in his mind how he should
account for his possession of the baby, and he did not want an
explanation forced upon him before he was ready to make it. These men
had come on board after the departure of the young woman, and could know
nothing of the facts, and therefore Lodloe, speaking from a high,
figurative standpoint, settled the matter by shaking his head and
saying:

"That can't be done. The little thing has lost its mother."

The man who had last spoken looked compassionately at Lodloe.

"That's a hard case," he said; "I know all about it, for I've been in
that boat myself. My wife died just as I was going to sail for this
country, and I had to bring over the two babies. I was as seasick as
blazes, and had to take care of 'em night and day. I tell you, sir,
you've got a hard time ahead of you; but feedin' 's the only thing. I'll
get you something. Is it on milk yet, or can it eat biscuit?"

Lodloe looked at the open mouth of the vociferous infant and saw teeth.

"Biscuit will do," he said, "or perhaps a banana. If you can get me
something of the sort I shall be much obliged"; and he gave the man some
money.

The messenger soon returned with an assortment of refreshments, among
which, happily, was not a banana, and the baby soon stopped wailing to
suck an enormous stick of striped candy. Quiet having been restored to
this part of the vessel, Lodloe sat down to reconsider the situation.

"It may be," he said to himself, "that I shall have to take it to an
asylum, but I shall let it stay there only during the period of
unintelligent howling. When it is old enough to understand that I am it