kin looked sorrowfully at the Captain and shook her
head.

"I've done my best," said the seaman, slowly.

"You'd think he was making his last will and testament from the way
he's talking," remarked Miss Pipkin, trying hard to appear as though she
was without the least concern.

"Maybe I be, Clemmie. Maybe I be."

"What's the cause for all this dejection?" asked the minister.

"Cause enough, Mack.... I'll be going back to the city to-morrow. I hate
to leave you to the wiles of the menagerie, for if I ain't terrible
mistook they're out for your blood, and they think they've got a whiff
of it. But I cal'late they've got their ropes crossed. They've got the
idea they're h'isting the mains'l, but it ain't nothing but the spanker.
If I was going to stay aboard I'd give 'em a few lessons the next few
days that they'd not forget all the rest of their lives."

"You're certainly mixing your figures in great shape this morning,"
commented the minister good-naturedly.

"Well, if mixing figures is like mixing drinks, making 'em more
elevating to the thoughts, I cal'late I'd best do a little more mixing.
There's going to be a squall right soon that'll test the ribs of the old
salvation ark to the cracking p'int. If I was you I'd furl my sails a
mite, and stand by, Mack."

"We're so accustomed to trouble now that----"

"Trouble? This is going to be hell, that is, unless luck or Providence
takes a hand and steers her through. Your Elder thinks he's on the home
stretch to winning his laurels, but if I was going to hang round here
he'd wake up right sudden one of these fine mornings to find his wreath
missing."

"Josiah, you're as wicked as you can be this morning. What on earth has
come over you?" exclaimed Miss Pipkin with deep concern.

"You'd feel wicked, too, if you was dealing with that kind. But that
there Elder puts me in mind of a tramp printer that come to work for
Adoniah one time. Adoniah was a brother of mine," he explained in answer
to a quizzing look from the minister. "Adoniah was managing a country
paper down the line then, and being short on help he took this tramp
printer on. He gave him something to set up that the editor had
writ,--you couldn't tell one of the letters of that editor from
t'other, hardly,--and that feller had a time with it. The piece was
about some chap that was running for office, and it closed up with
something like this: 'Dennis, my boy, look well to your laurels.' When
that tramp go