"A contract won't steer worth a cent unless it's in writing, Emily,"
said he, looking over his wife's shoulder as she wrote. "Gracious, girl,
you're making it too thin; _any_ greenhorn could sail right through that
and all around it. Here, let _me_ have it." And Crayme wrote, dictating
aloud to himself as he did so, "And the--party--of the first
part--hereby agrees to--do everything--else that the--spirit of
this--agreement--seems to the party--of the second--part to--indicate
or--imply." This he read over to his wife, saying:

"That's the way we fix contracts that aren't ship-shape, Emily; a
steamboat couldn't be run in any other way." Then Crayme wrote at the
foot of the paper, "Sam Crayme, Capt. Str. _Excellence_" surveyed the
document with evident pride, and handed it to his wife, saying:

"Now, you see, you've got me so I can't ever get out of it by trying to
make out that 'twas some other Sam Crayme that you reformed."

"Oh husband!" said Mrs. Crayme, throwing her arms about the captain's
neck, "_don't_ talk in that dreadful business way! I'm too happy to bear
it. I want to go with you on this trip."

The captain shrank away from his wife's arms, and a cold perspiration
started all over him as he exclaimed:

"Oh, don't, little girl! Wait till next trip. There's an unpleasant set
of passengers aboard; the barometer points to rainy weather, so you'd
have to stay in the cabin all the time; our cook is sick, and his cubs
serve up the most infernal messes; we're light of freight, and have got
to stop at every warehouse on the river, and the old boat'll be either
shrieking, or bumping, or blowing off steam the whole continual time."

Mrs. Crayme's happiness had been frightening some of her years away,
and her smile carried Sam himself back to his pre-marital period as she
said:

"Never mind the rest; I see you don't want me to go," and then she
became Mrs. Crayme again as she said, pressing her face closely to her
husband's breast, "but I hope you won't get _any_ freight, _anywhere_,
so you can get home all the sooner."

Then the captain called on Dr. White, and announced such a collection of
symptoms that the doctor grew alarmed, insisted on absolute quiet, and
conveyed Crayme in his own carriage to the boat, saw him into his berth,
and gave to Fred Macdonald a multitude of directions and cautions, the
sober recording of which upon paper was of great service in saving Fred
from suffering over the Quixotic asp