The Cruise of the Jasper B.

m's easily negotiable securities had been converted into cash, and

e might have been there for some time. Evidently, at one period, the Jasper B. had played a part in some catch-coin scheme of summer entertainment; a scheme that had failed.

o the weather-scarred stern, on which the name was faintly discernible, the hulk had an air ab

a tangle of beard that had once been yellowish red but was now streaked with dirty white; he fished earnestly without apparent result,

lodged upon the deck; in a couple of places they sprang as high as the rail. Weeds grew on shore; in fact, it would have taken a better nautical authority than Cleggett to tell offhand just exactly where the land ended and the Jasp

kers, but also as to coat and trousers and worn boots and cap and pipe and flannel shirt-turned around a

the old man might own the v

ruding," ventured Cleggett, po

h pipeful, rolled it in his palms, knocked the old ash from his pipe, refilled and relighted it, all with the utmost deliberation. Then he cut another small piece of tobacco from the "plug" and popped it into his mouth. Cleggett perceived with su

Do

answer that Cleggett had forgotten his own question, a

tuously, spat on the deck, a

o buy any se

no," said

of an idiot like Cleggett that he would NOT want to buy any seed potatoes. But afte

corn!" he announce

. I

ed the brown one, as if

N

he had lost interest, and began to win

t?" Cleggett touch

' of buy

. Who ow

ld you do

up and sail her

ke a sight

ho did you s

d with the rusty reel, deign

as I

o DOES

in the mud and h

find out who owned her. "I picked you out for an old sailor the minute I saw you." He thoug

and she's got no nothin'. She used to be used as a kind of a barroom and da

d, and t

ght your

egg

eflect on the na

k me, I'd say her

p? Could a ship like her sail around the world, for

the brown one's features. He leaned back against the rail a

. "Isaiah Abernethy. The fellow that owns her

nted Mr. Abernethy from dealing with an interlocutor's remarks in the sequence that seemed to be desired by the interlocutor. He too

ldberg's office?

Either you was sent to me by someone that knows I'm the proper party to set you right about ships,

skipper? Perhaps you're one of the retired Long Isl

" said Mr. Abernethy, glancing over the hulk, "if she

you call her

nethy, "has his office over town ri

l, strong-looking old man with long legs and knotty wrists, who moved across the de

ey's no law agin' callin' me Cap'n Abernethy

ad gone thirty yards further he st

askin' me, she ain't NOTHIN' now. But if you was to ask me again I mig

and things-if you choose to call a ship, which has a spirit of its own, merely a thing. There must have been this affinity bet

first seen her he was in M

ith her. For that matter he had thought it a little odd in the first place when he had been directed to a real estate agent as the owner of the craft. But as he knew very little abo

sel," said Cleggett. "I don't know

if to say something. But nothing came of it-not just then, at least. When the last signature had been written, and Clegget's c

u can't use

rised to find that the

th the land. She was on the land when I bought the plot, and I ju

the land" grat

n the water

hen," suggeste

il all right,"

sails and things she'd sail. Figuring

answered: "Oh, no, no! No

is summer?-Outdoor sleep

inking

. I had a friend who turned an old barge like tha

sation was somehow growing more and more distasteful to

ll her a YACHT, would

gett, "perhaps not. She's mo

ught a bark was bigger. A sc

he Jasper B. a scow! "You m

d-naturedly at his departing custome

ng, and turning in the doorway. "Understand m

ige of the smile had died from Mr. Goldberg's lips, Cl

er, Mr. Cleggett," said Mr. Goldberg, tur

ntions; Cleggett was not an ordinary man; he often moved straight towards his object by inspiration; great poets and g

within half a mile of it by trolley. Nevertheless, when he reached the Ja

ation and littered with a jumble of odds and ends which looked like the ruins of a barroom. As he turned to ascend to the

hem evidently a person who imposed some sort of leadership on the rest of the party. This was a tall fellow, with a slouching gait and round shoulders. And yet, to judge from his movements, he was both quick and powerful. The other was a sho

aw somebody a

Heinrich?" aske

r so," sai

," said the tall fellow. "He's the only

rsisted Heinrich. "Someone w

fool not to buy her before this; Cleggett did not

Heinrich, and ta

Heinrich obviously a trifle confused, but the other one in no wise abashed. He made no attempt, this tall fellow, to give the situation a casual t

But the thing that grated particularly upon Cleggett was the character of the man's scarfpin. It was by far the largest ornament of the sort that Cleggett had ever seen; he was near enough to the fellow to make out that it had been carved from a piece of solid ivory in the likeness of a skull. In the eyeholes of the skull two opals flamed with an evil levin. The man suggested to Cleggett, at first glance, a bartender who had come into money, or a drayman who had been promoted to an import

gaze, advanced towards him across the deck of the Jasper B.

u will know me the n

this singular duel of looks in silence. In the act of getting into the machine he face about again a

know you

he mouth; his soul stirred with a premonition of conflict, and the desire for it. And yet, on the surface of things at least, the man had been nothing more than rude; as Cleggett watched the machine make off to

gets on

e than get on Cleggett's nerves before th