become my wife, and I will shield and protect you from all the
storms of life.' It ends like an advertisement for umbrellas," he
complained.

"It don't do no such thing," contended Abner vigorously. "It's a
real high-toned proposal and any woman ought to be satisfied with it.
The man that wrote that must have known an awful lot about women.
Now you go ahead and learn that proposal and there you be all ready
for the parson."

"Yes, 'there I be,'" mimicked the captain ungratefully. "It would
take a college professor to say them words fast, and I'm only a
plain sailor man."

But in spite of his sarcasm the captain attacked his self-appointed
task with the grim determination that had made him respected in
every port wherever the big deep water tramp, of which he was the
proud master, had dropped her huge mudhook.

The steamer was laid up at Boston, having a splendid collection of
tropical barnacles scraped from her stout hull. If it had not been
for the barnacles, the captain would not have been ashore.

For a week the captain studied strenuously, hardly allowing himself
time to sleep. Abner offered to assist him at rehearsals and every
afternoon he drilled Captain Enoch diligently. He was a firm
disciplinarian and insisted upon his pupil's being letter perfect.
Book in hand, he corrected the captain vigorously.

"It's 'es-teemed lady'" he admonished the captain. "You said 'steamed.'
M'lissy ain't cooked. An' you stutter yet when you come to that word
right after painful. Can't you say it plainer?"

"'Trep-trep-trepidation,'" stammered the captain again. "Say it
yourself," he dared Abner. "I'll bet you can't do no better."

"I ain't tryin' to say it," Abner reminded him with dignity.
"If I was I'd make it out someway. I wouldn't be beat by any word
ever put in a dictionary. You're doin' better," he complimented the
captain, after the sixth recital. "Mebbe you'll git it after awhile."

But when Captain Enoch felt that his monitor was most needed and had
begun to look hopefully forward to a one hundred per cent rehearsal,
Abner took a sudden notion to go sword fishing.

"The time to go sword fishin' is when sword fish are due," he
insisted with Solomonic wisdom. "I'm going to be off Nantucket
shoals by daybreak to-morrow."

"But how be I goin' to git along without you to boost me on that
proposal?" demanded the captain. "If you had any feelin' at all, you
wouldn't leave me just when I need you most."

Abner