ess how quick fireworks kin go off. I see
a big combustication of dem one summer in a hotel where I was waiting.
Da had to call de fire department to put dem out an' da shot out moah
dan a dozen winders, too!"

"We had a similar trouble, when the yacht club had a celebration,"
said the captain. "A Japanese lantern dropped on some rockets and set
them off. The rockets flew in all directions and one struck a deck
hand in the arm and he had to go to the hospital to be treated. We
have had a lucky escape."

The accident put a damper on more celebrating, and Tom was requested
to store away what remained of the fireworks. Little did he dream of
how useful those fireworks were to become in the future.

Early on the following morning Bahama Bill, presented himself. The
boys had been told how he looked, yet they had all they could do to
keep from smiling when he presented himself. He was a short, thickset
man, with broad shoulders, and legs which were very much bowed. He
wore his reddish hair long and also sported a thick beard. He had a
squint in one eye which, as Sam said, "gave him the appearance of
looking continually over his shoulder. When he talked his voice was an
alternate squeak and rumble.

"Well, of all the odd fellows I ever met he is the limit," was Tom's
comment. "Why, he'd do for a comic valentine!"

"I almost had to laugh in his face," said Sam. "Even now I can't look
at him without grinning."

"He's a character," was Dick's opinion. "You'll never get tired with
that chap around," and in this surmise he was correct, for Bahama Bill
was as full of sea yarns as some fish are full of bones, and he was
willing to talk as long as anybody would listen to him.

"Very much pleased to know ye all," said he with a profound bow to the
ladies. "Ain't seen such a nice crowd since I sailed on the Mary
Elizabeth, up the coast o' Maine, jest fourteen years ago. At that
time we had on board Captain Rigger's wife, his mother in law, his two
sisters, his brother's wife, his aunt and--"

"Never mind the Rigger family just now, Camel," interrupted Mr. Rover.
"What I want to know is, are you ready to sail?"

"Aye, aye! that I am, and I don't care if it's a for two months or two
years. Once when I sailed on the Sunflower the captain said we'd be
out a month, and we struck a storm and drifted almost over to the
coast a' Africy. The water ran low, and--"

"Well, if you are ready to sail, we'll start without further delay,"