lavish waste and disregard of character--there had been all this, as I
knew, and more pitiable still, in competition for the weekly four
dollars of government money. 'Twas a most marvellous achievement,
thinks I, that the fool of Twist Tickle had from this still weather of
reason and tempest of feeling emerged with the laurel of wisdom (as
my tutor said) to crown him. 'Twas fair hard to credit! I must know
the device--the clever political trick--by which the wags and
wiseacres of Twist Tickle had been discomfited. 'Twas with this hungry
curiosity that I demanded of the fool of Twist Tickle how he had
managed so great a thing.

"Eh, Moses," says I; "how _was_ it?"

"Dannie," he gravely explained, "'tis very simple. My bid," says he,
impressively, "was the lowest."

"An' how much was that, Moses?"

"Mother," he observed, "didn't hold a wonderful lot with half
measures."

'Twas no answer to my question.

"She always 'lowed," says he, with a mystifyingly elaborate wave and
accent, "that _doin'_ was better than _gettin'_."

I still must wait.

"'Moses,' says she," he pursued, "'don't you mind the price o' fish;
you _cotch_ un. Fish,' says she, 'is fish; but prices goes up an'
down, accordin' t' the folly o' men. You _do_,' says she; 'an' you
leave what you _gets_ t' take care of itself.' An' I 'low," says
Moses, gently, a smile transfiguring his vacant face, "that mother
knowed."

'Twas all, it seemed to me, a defensive argument.

"An' mother 'lowed, afore she died," he added, looking up to a gray
sky, wherein a menace of snow dwelt, "that a good man would save his
Queen from rascals."

"Ay," I complained; "but what was the bid that won from Eli Flack?"

"The bid?"

"Ay; the bid."

"Not expensive," says he.

"But how much, Moses?"

"Well, Dannie," he answered, with a sigh and a rub of his curly,
yellow beard, "I 'lowed mother wouldn't charge much for servin' the
Queen: for," says he, enlivened, "'twould be too much like common
labor t' carry Her Majesty's mail at a price. An' I bid," he added,
eying me vaguely, "accordin' t' what I 'lowed mother would have me do
in the Queen's service. _Fac' is, Dannie_," says he, in a squall of
confidence, "_I 'lowed I'd carry it free!_"

* * * * *

'Twas this contact with the world of Jimmie Tick's Cove that embarked
the fool upon an adventurous enterprise. When, in the spring of that
year, the sea being open, the _Quick