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 eyes. Cap'n Sands himself suddenly grew serious of face, and with his stick pointed out a certain small boy with a very red face, who dropped his oar for a moment to wipe a very moist forehead with a partly rolled-up gingham shirt-sleeve.

"Why, I 'm an old sinner if there ain't Charlie Ball's boy! And Charlie jus' sayin' over to Rankin's how that boy o' his was born tired!"

"An' on sech a day!" exploded the other old seaman, overcome.

Before they had recovered from their shock the Greyhound slipped silently and mysteriously away, as all pirate ships should, no matter how flattering such salutations may seem, coming as they did from the oldest sea-dog in all Chamboro.

Cap'n Steiner stood leaning on his cane, gazing after them pensively. Cap'n Sands at first showed signs of becoming suddenly apoplectic, growing purplish about the gills and shaking with some silent and concealed emotion as he pounded his stick on the planks of the old dock. Then he swore softly, many times, and looked in the wake of the