be sure!"

By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them.

"Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life! There! I
tell you! I could a'most have cut my own connection. Like the dealer in
my country, away West, who when he had let himself be outdone in a
bargain, said to himself, 'Now I tell you what! I'll never speak to you
again.' And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and
translated the multiplication table into their language,--which is a fact
that can be proved. If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come
across, and see if he'll have the face to contradict it."

He took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee.

"Not a bit afraid of me now, you see. Knows I am fond of small people. I
have a child, and she's a girl, and I sing to her sometimes."

"What do you sing?" asked Margaret.

"Not a long song, my dear.

Silas Jorgan
Played the organ.

That's about all. And sometimes I tell her stories,--stories of sailors
supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned." Here
the captain musingly went back to his song,--

Silas Jorgan