ring it up, and he thought there was
twenty thousand dollars' worth in this lot of his, and that without
figuring in the duty--but he don't care for wine much--but he does love
a good Vessel, and he was looking the _Aurora_ over and he said he'd be
willing to exchange all that wine for the _Aurora_. I told him that the
_Aurora_ only cost you twenty-five hundred, but he said, 'No matter, I
have a weakness for the _Aurora_,' this friend of mine. Of course
there'll be a few little extra expenses you'll have to pay for, like the
hawser and the big anchor cut away and the keep of a crew for a week
over in Newfoundland, and so on, but that won't be much--five hundred
dollars ought to cover it all."

And Miller gave back the _Aurora_ and paid over the five hundred, and I
gave him an order on John Rose for the wine. And then I took the little
baby's brooch out of my pocket and handed it back to him.

And then I sailed over to Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_ and took
twenty-one hundred barrels of herring off John Rose and put out, and,
getting the first of a stiff easterly, the _Aurora_ carried it all the
way to Gloucester. And I was home to the wife and baby by New Year's.
And the baby got a good brooch. I could afford it. From the profits of
twenty-one hundred barrels of fine fat herring I could well afford it.

I haven't seen Miller since, but they say he's shyer than he used to be
of simple American fishermen.

>Light-Ship 67

Perrault was the good old Frenchman who kept the general store just
across from the Navy Yard gate, and Baldwin was the chief boson's mate,
U.S.N., who commanded the _Whist_, the little tug which was used as a
general utility boat by the Navy Yard people.

Old Perrault was born in Paris, and, in God's goodness, hoped yet to die
there. And Baldwin had been in Paris, more than once in his cruising
youth, and could converse of Paris; and to converse of Paris, in such
loving language, was it not to win one's heart?

Old Perrault had never dissembled his regard for the sailor. A pity he
viewed life so carelessly, the brave-hearted Baldwin. So excellent in
many respects, if he had but a little ambition for himself! If he but
hearkened a little for the world's opinion. But such a man! Sometimes
old Perrault wished that his motherless Claire would disregard all his
wordly homilies, fall in love with the rugged Baldwin, and marry him.

Baldwin himself maintained no such exalted hopes. A fine husba