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Rh from Bunty Gildersleeve of the forked beard. The mate was puzzled, then aggrieved.

"I don't touch a drop, cap'n," he appealed; "you know I don't, well enough."

"Course ye don't, Zing," the captain soothed him. "That was a joke."

The other returned serenely to his proposal:—

"Well, then I 'll git one fer the lantrun?"

"Do so, Zing." The captain, solemnly ratifying it, returned to his peg.

The lean little man hopped from rail to wharf, and shuffled off toward the street.

After him Mr. Beatty stared with disapproval. "There goes the biggest fool in town," he dogmatized.

"Oh, no, he ain't," objected Captain Christy. "Beggin' your pardon, he ain't. The' 's lots bigger fools, an' worse men, than Zwinglius Turner. He ain't quick, but he sticks by ye. He's ben with me ever sence he was a orphan boy. An' while he ain't no navigator, he's able, for things aboard ship, ropes an' taykle an' gear, right under his nose. O' course"—the captain smiled