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"Long Oliver, I'm called in common. Maybe you remembers me?"

"Why, to be sure! I thought I minded your face. But still I don't take your meanin' azactly."

"I didn' suppose you would. So I'm goin' to tell 'ee. Fourteen year' back I courted Naomi, an' she used me worse 'n a dog. Twelve year' back she married you. Nine year' back you went to sea in the _John S. Hancock_, an' was wrecked off the Leeward Isles an' cast up on a spit o' rock. I'd been hangin' about New Orleens, just then, at a loose end, an' bein' in want o' cash, took a scamper in the _Shawanee_, a dirty tramp of a schooner knockin' in an' out and peddlin' notions among the West Indy Islanders. As you know we caught sight o' your signal an' took you off, an' you went to a mad-house. You was clean off your head an' didn' know me from Adam; an' I never let on that I knew you or the ship you'd sailed in. 'Seemed to me the hand o' God was in it, an' I saw my way to cry quits wi' Naomi."

"I don't see."

"I don't suppose you do. But 'twas this way:--Naomi (thinks I) 'll be givin' this man