se, sure enough," returned Gardiner, laughing;
"though I should not think of looking into this chest for any such riches.
Most of our masters navigate too much at random to make their charts of
any great value. They can find the places they look for themselves, but
don't seem to know how to tell other people the road. I have known my old
man lay down a shoal that he fancied he saw, quite a degree out of the
way. Now such a note as that would do more harm than good. It might make a
foul wind of a fair one, and cause a fellow to go about, or ware ship,
when there was not the least occasion in the world for doing anything of
the sort."

"Ay, ay; this will do for nervous men, who are always thinking they see
danger ahead; but it is different with islands that a craft has actually
visited. I do not see much use, Deacon Pratt, in your giving yourself any
further trouble. My uncle was not a very rich man, I perceive, and I must
go to work and make my own fortune if I wish more than I've got already.
If there is any demand against the deceased, I am ready to discharge it."

This was coming so much to the point that the deacon hardly knew what to
make of it. He recollected his own ten dollars, and the covetousness of
his disposition so far got the better of his prudence as to induce him to
mention the circumstance.

"Dr. Sage may have a charge--no doubt has one, that ought to be settled,
but your uncle mainly paid his way as he went on. I thought the widow who
took care of him was entitled to something extra, and I handed her ten
dollars this morning, which you may repay to me or not, just as you
please."

Captain Daggett drew forth his wallet and discharged the obligation on the
spot. He then replaced the charts, and, without opening the till of the
chest, he shut down the lid, locked it, and put the key in his pocket,
saying that he would cause the whole to be removed, much as if he felt
anxious to relieve the deacon of an incumbrance. This done, he asked a
direction to the dwelling of the Widow White, with whom he wished to
converse, ere he left the Point.

"I shall have the questions of so many cousins to answer, when I get
home," he said, smiling, "that it will never do for me to go back without
taking all the talk I can get with me. If you will be kind enough to show
me the way, captain Gar'ner, I will promise to do as much for you, when
you come to hunt up the leavings of some old relation on the Vineyard."

Roswell