istmas dinner."

And I guess it was. Pretty soon they were hopping around like a lot of
leaping goats. The best-natured crowd ever you see, mind, but it was
Christmas Day, and they'd done a good job; the blood was running wild
inside them, and I let them run a while. And then when I thinks it time
to begin to straighten them out, I looks them over and finally picking
out Archie Gillis I says, 'Archie, I think you're the drunkest! Take the
wheel and soak it out.'

And Archie stood to the wheel, and up the cabin steps the rest of the
gang kept passing him drinks of champagne when they thought I wasn't
looking.

By dark of that Christmas we shot into Folly Cove in Placentia Bay and
came to anchor off John Rose's wharf. And the _Aurora's_ crew were there
helping John, and there was the load of herring John had promised. And
he thought I'd come for the herring, but I hadn't--not yet. I had a word
in private with John, and he found a nice little place among the cliffs,
and with John Rose and the _Aurora's_ crew it didn't take long to stow
those cases of wine where no stranger would find them in a hurry.

And when that was done I goes over the papers again. And sure enough,
her papers read for a fishing trip to the Grand Banks. Her crew had been
shipped for a fishing trip. Her gear, dories, bait (not much bait
though) was all for a fishing trip. It was plain as could be, I had
Miller under my lee. And so we put out again into the night, and before
daylight we were back in Saint Pierre harbor again, and all hands
ashore.

And when Miller woke up in the morning there was the _Aurora_ laying to
anchor in the stream just where she'd been the morning before. And we
were having a nice little breakfast up to Antone's when Miller and the
governor and the gun-boat captain comes to get me. And Miller was going
to arrest me, put me in irons, not a minute's delay, not one, and I says
"For what?" And Miller throws up his hands and repeats: "For what? He
says for what? Mong Doo, for what?" And I says: "Yes, for what? What are
you going to arrest me for? For a little excursion trip, a little run
off shore, is it?--so's to eat our Christmas turkey in peace?" I see
that my play lay with the French naval officer, so I turns to him.
"There was a turkey. Old Antone here will tell you that it belonged to
one of my men, Mr. Leary here--that he won it fairly, and that the same
turkey was stolen from him in Henri Argand's. And Mr. Leary got it b