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244 Once he stopped his former mate before the post office.

"Zing," he said pointblank, "what d' ye say if we'd sell the vessel?"

Zwinglius looked at him shyly, embarrassed, silent, as at some high priest who might propound a sacrilegious riddle.

"Why," he faltered, "I dunno— What fer, cap'n?"

"May come to that," rejoined Captain Christy, and passed on, cloaked in sorrowful enigma.

The increasing storm in his house, and distress in his mind, made him spend a serene morning of Indian summer in painting his front steps. The house, shipshape with white clapboards and green shutters, stood out so trig and Yankee-fashion among the dove-gray houses of the town, that it might have looked too virtuous, too spruce, had not a vine traced runic patterns over the windows, and the sunlight, through a stalwart yellow birch, poured flickering changes along the whole front, like the play of kindly expression on a plain face. Nor did the steps, that