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288 man, said to be a musician somewhere in the world of cities, came to lounge in sunny corners. With meek and sensible questions, he slowly won friendship of the captain, and so of the captain's Joyce. And friendships had been rare with this tired stranger.

The Northern summer had sped away, before Captain Christy pronounced the Amirald fit for sea. He had changed her rig to fore-and-aft: "for," he said, "I can't carry no crew to be squarin' yards all day long." On her trial sail as a schooner she behaved handsomely in the bay. Her foresail, it is true, provoked smiles; for—as the captain had stubbornly kept both spar and shroud—the baby square of white canvas reached only to the original foretop. The gap surprised one, as though the vessel had lost a front tooth.

"Diaper on a broomstick!" jeered Master Kibben, at a safe range. "Jigger on a yawl!"

"Ketches wind, anyway," observed the captain, ignoring. "Big enough to keep me and Zing busy. She's took nigh all my money as 't is. O' course," he added regretfully,