to Gloucester some way, and myself takes passage next day on the mail
packet to Saint Pierre.

It was after dark of Christmas Eve when I landed at Saint Pierre. I went
up to Argand's Caffay, a place where all kinds of seafaring people used
to go to get a drink and a bite to eat. There were quite a few in there
now--French stokers from a steamer or two and half a dozen French
man-of-war's men from a French gun-boat that was lying in the harbor, I
remember.

I didn't see any American fishermen in Argand's, but I knew that some
of 'em would be drifting in before long. And by and by a few did, but me
saying nothing to any of them, only sitting over to a table in a corner
with a little bit of supper, and thinking that it was going to be a blue
kind of Christmas for me, and a blue Christmas at home, too, for by this
time Gloucester must've got the news of the seizure of the _Aurora_, and
somebody'd surely passed the word to the wife.

I was sitting there, in the corner, figuring things out and not
bothering much about the people coming and going, when somebody sits
down at my table, and no sooner down than I felt his boot pressing mine
under the table. I looked up, and it was Archie Gillis.

"A fine one _you_!" I breaks out--"where's Sam?"

"Gi'me a chance now, skipper," says Gillis, and orders a little
something, and when the waiter was gone: "Sam's not far away. I left him
up to Antone's rolling dice for turkeys. We came over, him and me, on a
little French packet. Sam guessed you'd come back to Saint Pierre, and
if you did he knew you'd drop in here. Sam'll be here soon, he guessed