"And in the midst of the performance Sim Phinney leans over to me with the most heavenly, resigned expression on his face, and says he:
"'It ain't OUR fault, Hiram. We promised not to interfere.'"
"What did Sam Holden and his wife say when they got home?" asked Captain Sol, when the triumphant whoops over Archibald's righteous chastisement had subsided.
"We didn't give him much of a chance to say anything. I laid for him in the hall when he arrived and told him that Phinney had got a telegram and must leave immediate. He wanted to know why, and a whole lot more, but I told him we'd write it. Neither Sim nor me cared to face Cousin Harriet after her darlin' son had spun his yarn. Ha! ha! I'd like to have seen her face--from a safe distance."
Captain Bailey Stitt cleared his throat. "Referrin' to them automobiles," he said, "I--"
"Say, Sol," interrupted Wingate, "did I ever tell you of Cap'n Jonadab's and my gettin' took up by the police when WE was in New York?"
"No," replied the astounded depot master. "Took up by the POLICE?"
"Um--hm. Surprises you, don't it? Well, that whole trip was a surprise to me.
"When Laban Thorp set out to thrash his son and the boy licked him instead, they found the old man settin' in the barnyard, holdin' on to his nose and grinnin' for pure joy.
"'Hurt?' says he. 'Why, some. But think of it! Only think of it!
I didn't believe Bill had it in him.'
"Well, that's the way I felt when Cap'n Jonadab sprung the New York plan on to me. I was pretty nigh as much surprised as Labe. The idea of a man with a chronic case of lockjaw of the pocketbook, same as Jonadab had worried along under ever sence I knew him, suddenly breakin' loose with a notion to go to New York on a pleasure cruise! 'Twas too many for me. I set and looked at him.
"'Oh, I mean it, Barzilla,' he says. 'I ain't been to New York sence I was mate on the Emma Snow, and that was 'way back in the eighties. That is, to stop I ain't. That time we went through on the way to Peter T.'s weddin' don't count, 'cause we only went in the front door and out the back, like Squealer Wixon went through high school. Let's you and me go and stay two or three days and have a real high old time,' says he.
"I fetched a long breath. 'Jonadab,' I says, don't scare a feller this way; I've got a weak heart. If you're goin' to start in and be divilish in your old age, why, do it kind of gradual. Let's go over to the billiard room and have a bottle of sass'parilla and a five-cent cigar, just to break the ice.'
"But that only made him mad.
"'You talk like a fish,' he says. 'I mean it. Why can't we go?
It's September, the Old Home House is shut up for the season, you and me's done well--fur's profits are concerned--and we ought to have a change, anyway. We've got to stay here in Orham all winter.'
"'Have you figgered out how much it's goin' to cost?' I asked him.
"Yes, he had. 'It won't be so awful expensive,' he says. 'I've got some stock in the railroad and that'll give me a pass fur's Fall River. And we can take a lunch to eat on the boat. And a stateroom's a dollar; that's fifty cents apiece. And my daughter's goin' to Denboro on a visit next week, so I'd have to pay board if I stayed to home. Come on, Barzilla! don't be so tight with your money.'
"So I said I'd go, though I didn't have any pass, nor no daughter to feed me free gratis for nothin' when I got back. And when we started, on the followin' Monday, nothin' would do but we must be at the depot at two o'clock so's not to miss the train, which left at quarter past three.
"I didn't sleep much that night on the boat. For one thing, our stateroom was a nice lively one, alongside of the paddle box and just under the fog whistle; and for another, the supper that Jonadab had brought, bein' mainly doughnuts and cheese, wa'n't the best cargo to take to bed with you. But it didn't make much diff'rence, 'cause we turned out at four, so's to see the scenery and git our money's worth. What was left of the doughnuts and cheese we had for breakfast.
"We made the dock on time, and the next thing was to pick out a hotel. I was for cruisin' along some of the main streets until we hove in sight of a place that looked sociable and not too expensive. But no; Jonadab had it all settled for me. We was goin' to the 'Wayfarer's Inn,' a boardin' house where he'd put up once when he was mate of the Emma Snow. He said 'twas a fine place and you could git as good ham and eggs there as a body'd want to eat.
"So we set sail for the 'Wayfarer's,' and of all the times gittin' to a place--don't talk! We asked no less than nine policemen and one hundred and two other folks, and it cost us thirty cents in car fares, which pretty nigh broke Jonadab's heart. However, we found it, finally, 'way off amongst a nest of brick houses and peddler carts and children, and it wa'n't the 'Wayfarer's Inn' no more, but was down in the shippin' list as the 'Golconda House.' Jonadab said the neighborhood had changed some sence he was there, but he guessed we'd better chance it, 'cause the board was cheap.
"We had a nine-by-ten room up aloft somewheres, and there we set down on the edge of the bed and a chair to take account of stock, as you might say.
"'Now, I tell you, Jonadab,' says I; 'we don't want to waste no time, and we've got the day afore us. What do you say if we cruise along the water front for a spell? There's ha'f a dozen Orham folks aboard diff'rent steamers that hail from this port, and 'twouldn't be no more'n neighborly to call on 'em. There's Silas Baker's boy, Asa--he's with the Savannah Line and he'd be mighty glad to see us. And there's--'
"But Jonadab held up his hand. He'd been mysterious as a baker's mince pie ever sence we started, hintin' at somethin' he'd got to do when we'd got to New York. And now he out with it.
"'Barzilla,' he says, 'I ain't sayin' but what I'd like to go to the wharves with you, first rate. And we will go, too. But afore we do anything else I've got an errand that must be attended to.
'Twas give to me by a dyin' man,' he says, 'and I promised him I'd do it. So that comes first of all.'
