"I've got to laugh every time I think of that sluice-way. Last month-- Warn't it last month, Jerry?" Jerry nodded, and sent a curl of smoke through his ragged mustache, accompanied by the remark, "Yes--last month." The Captain continued: "Last month, I say, we were havin' some almighty high tides, and when they git to cuttin' round that sluice-way it makes it bad for our beach-cart, 'specially when we've got to keep abreast of a wreck that ain't grounded so we can git a line to her; so I went down after supper to see how the sluice-way was comin' on. It was foggy, and a heavy sea runnin'--the surf showin' white, but everythin' else black as pitch. Fust thing I knew I heared somethin' like the rattle of an oar-lock, or a tally-block, and then a cheer come just outside the breakers. I run down to the swash and listened, and then I seen her comin' bow on, big as a house; four men in her holdin' on to the gunnels, hollerin' for all they was worth. I got to her just as the surf struck her and rolled her over bottom-side up." "Were you alone?" I interrupted. "Had to be. The men were up and down the beach and the others was asleep in their bunks. Well, when I had 'em all together I run 'em up on the beach and in here to the Station, and when the light showed 'em up-- Well, I tell ye, one of 'em--a nigger cook--was a sight! 'Bout seven feet high, and thick round as a flag-pole, and blacker'n that stove, and skeered so his teeth was a-chatterin'. They'd left their oyster schooner a-poundin' out on the bar and had tried to come ashore in their boat. Well, we got to work on 'em and got some dry clo'es on 'em, and----" "Were you wet, too?" I again interrupted. "Wet! Soppin'! I'd been under the boat feelin' 'round for 'em. Well, the King's Daughters had sent some clo'es down, and we looked over what we had, and I got a pair of high-up pants, and Jerry, who wears Number 12--Don't you, Jerry?" (Jerry nodded and puffed on)--"had an old pair of shoes, and we found a jacket, another high-up thing big 'nough to fit a boy, that come up to his shoulder-blades, and he put 'em on and then he set 'round here for a spell dryin' out, with his long black legs stickin' from out of his pants like handle-bars, and his hands, big as hams, pokin' out o' the sleeves o' his jacket. We got laughin' so we had to go out by ourselves in the kitchen and have it out; didn't want to hurt his feelin's, you know." The Captain leaned back in his chair, laughed quietly to himself at the picture brought back to his mind, and continued, the men listening quietly, the smoke of their pipes drifting over the room.