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240 The captain, studying the fluffy plumes of dried pampas grass over the mantel, was moved to take a rare measure, and to his mind an ignoble.

"I don't want to talk about—anything I 've done, Carrie," was his apology: "but after stayin' home from sea so many year to please you, it ain't likely I 'll go leave you now. I ain't a boy," he suggested, with another vain appeal to humor, "I ain't a boy that can run away to sea no longer."

"Hark!" cried the invalid sharply. "Now who's saying you were? What I complain of, and any woman would complain of, is for you to spend all your time aboard her, idling and gossiping, and leave your wife here alone at home."

This was Position Number Two. If he should reply that every morning, after an hour of frustrate conversation, she told him to clear out and let her rest a while, then the discussion would shift to Number Three: "A woman can't always sit and hear the same person saying the same things." This would lead easily to Position Four: "Neighbors? A fine lot of