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 himself, with a few fancy touches for the guests. There were enormously thick sandwiches of meat between slices of bread; there were dill-pickles and hermit-cookies, also a can of cold coffee and half a blueberry pie.

"'T ain't much," the Captain apologized, setting the things in a row on the seat. "Jest plain stuff, but fillin'. Fall to! My gracious, I ain't brought no tools to eat with!"

He looked quite horrified, until Joan and Garth, laughing, assured him that knives and forks on a picnic were unknown to them and that they would have considered it much too grand, had he brought them.

"Wal!" beamed the Captain, taking a hearty circular bite from a sandwich, followed at once by a gulp of coffee, "you folks out thar, you're sartinly all right. They jest ain't no rubbish about you a-tall. No, sir!"

"If this is coffee, it's awfully good," observed Garth over the top of his cup. "I don't get any at home."

The good Captain put down his dill pickle in dismay.

"I never thought o' thet. Guess you ain't allowed it, hey? Mebbe you'd better not; don't