similar inquiries which, while indefinite and tentative, were, so to
speak, but flies thrown out on the stream of talk,--the major rising
continuously, seizing the bait, and rushing headlong over sunken rocks and
through tangled weeds of the improbable in a way that would have done
credit to a Munchausen of older date. As for Jack, he let him run on. One
plank in the platform of his hospitality was to give every guest a free
rein.

Before the men separated for the day, the major had invited each
individual person to make Crab Island his home for the balance of his
life, regretting that no woman now graced his table since Mrs. Slocomb's
death,--"Major Talbot's widow--Major John Talbot of Pocomoke, suh," this
impressively and with sudden gravity of tone,--placing his stables, his
cellar, and his servants at their disposal, and arranging for everybody
to meet everybody else the following day in Baltimore, the major starting
that night, and Jack and his friends the next day. The whole party would
then take passage on board one of the Chesapeake Bay boats, arriving off
Crab Island at daylight the succeeding morning.

This was said with a spring and joyousness of manner, and a certain
quickness of movement, that would surprise those unfamiliar with some of
the peculiarities of Widow Talbot's second husband. For with that true
spirit of vagabondage which saturated him, next to the exquisite luxury of
lying sprawled on a lounge with a noiseless servant attached to the other
end of an electric wire, nothing delighted the major so much as an outing,
and no member of any such junketing party, be it said, was more popular
every hour of the journey. He could be host, servant, cook, chambermaid,
errand-boy, and _grand seigneur_ again in the same hour, adapting himself
to every emergency that arose. His good-humor was perennial, unceasing,
one constant flow, and never checked. He took care of the dogs, unpacked