it for us. Take your places, all hands. Come on, now,
look alive! Tut, tut, tut! Abe Hardin', for heaven's sakes, can't you
pick up your moorin's, or what does ail you? Come to anchor! Set down!"

Mr. Harding was, apparently, having trouble in sitting down. He made
several nervous and hurried attempts, but none was successful. His
wife begged, in one of her stage whispers, to be informed if he'd been
"struck deef." "Don't you hear the cap'n talkin' to you?" she demanded.

"Course I hear him," retorted her husband, testily, and in the same
comprehensively audible whisper. "No, I ain't been struck deef--nor dumb
neither."

"Humph! You couldn't be struck any dumber than you are. You was born
dumb. Set DOWN! Everybody's lookin' at you. I never was so mortified in
my life."

The harassed Abel made one more attempt. He battled savagely with his
chair.

"I CAN'T set down," he said. "This everlastin' chair won't set even. I
snum I believe it ain't got but three laigs. There! Now let's see."

He seated himself heavily and with emphasis. Mr. Jim Fletcher, whose
place was next him, uttered an agonized "Ow!"

"No wonder 'twon't set even, Abe," he snorted. "You've got the other
laig up onto my foot. Yus, and it's drove half down through it by this
time. Get UP! Whew!"

A ripple of merriment ran around the circle. Every one laughed or
ventured to smile, every one except the Hardings and Captain Hallett
and, of course, Galusha Bangs. The latter's thoughts were not in the
light keeper's parlor. Cousin Gussie leaned over and whispered in his
ear:

"Loosh," whispered Mr. Cabot, chokingly, "if the rest of this stunt
is as good as the beginning I'll forgive you for handing that fourteen
thousand to the mummy-hunters. I wouldn't have missed it for more than
that."

Captain Jethro, beating the table, drove his guests to order as of old
he had driven his crews. Having obtained silence and expressed, in a few
stinging words, his opinion of those who laughed, he proceeded with his
arrangements.

"Tamson," he commanded, addressing Miss Black, "go and set there by
the organ. Come, Marietta, you know where your place is, don't you? Set
right where you did last time. And don't let's have any more mockery!"
he thundered, addressing the company in general. "If I thought for a
minute there was any mockery or make-believe in these meetin's, I--I--"
He paused, his chest heaving, and then added, impatiently, but in a
milder tone, "Well, go