Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/78

 anything one of you had charge of!" She gave the necktie a little final pat. "There, now!"

The Captain's frown was gone past replacement. But he still felt that he owed something to himself.

"If you was to ask me," he said, turning to Cleggett, "whether what I'd got to say to you would do later, or whether it wouldn't do later, I'd answer you it would, or it wouldn't, all accordin' to whether you wanted to hear it now, or whether you wanted to hear it later. And as far as sailin' her is concerned, Mr. Cleggett, I'll sail her, whether you turn her into a battleship or into one of these here yachts. I come of a seafarin' fambly."

And then he said to the lady, indicating the tie and bobbing his head forward with a prim little bow: "Thank ye, ma'am."

"Isn't he a duck!" said the lady, following him with her eyes, as he went behind the cabin. There the Cap'n chewed, smoked, and fished, earnestly and simultaneously, for ten minutes.

Indeed, the blonde lady, from the moment when Elmer began to put ice into the box, seemed to have regained her spirits. The little dog, which was an indicator of her moods, had likewise lost