"It began because I heard so many other men tellin' of their adventoors, an' I couldn't tell of none. My store at Rocky Head where I lived all my life till I come here (mother came over to Cardhaven with her second husband; but I stayed on there till twenty-odd year ago)--my store there was like this one. There's allus a lot of old barnacles like Cap'n Joab and Washy Gallup clingin' to such reefs as this. "So I heard unendin' experiences of men who had gone to sea. And at night I read everything I could get touchin' on, an' appertainin' to, sea-farin'. In my mind I've sailed the seven seas, charted unknown waters, went through all the perils I tell 'bout. Yes, sir, I don't dispute I'm a hi-mighty liar," he repeated, sighing and shaking his head. "But when I come here to the Shell Road, where there warn't nobody knowed me, it struck me forcible," pursued Cap'n Abe, "that my fambly bein' so little known I could achieve a sort of vicarious repertation as a seagoin' man. "Ye see what I mean? I cal'lated if I'd had a brother--a brother who warn't marked with a fear of the ocean--_he_ would ha' been a sailor. Course he would! All us Silts was seafarin' men! "An' I thought so much 'bout this brother that I _might_ ha' had, and what he would ha' done sailin' up an' down the world, learnin' to be a master mariner, an' finally pacin' his own quarter-deck, that he grew like he was real to me, Niece Louise--he re'lly did. I give him a name. 'Am'zon' has been a name in our fambly since Cap'n Reba Silt first put the nose of his old _Tigris_ to the tidal wave of the Am'zon River--back in seventeen-forty. He come home to New Bedford and named his first boy, that was waitin' to be christened, 'Am'zon Silt.' "So I called this--this dream brother of mine--'Am'zon.' These Cardhaven folks warn't likely to know whether I had a brother or not. And I made up he went to sea when he was twelve--like I told ye, my dear. Ye-as. I did hate to lie to ye, an' you just new-come here. But I'd laid my plans for a long while back just to walk out, as it were, an' let these fellers 'round here have a taste o' Cap'n Am'zon Silt that they'd begun to doubt was ever comin' to Cardhaven. An' hi-mighty!" exploded Cap'n Abe, with a great laugh, "I _have_ give 'em a taste of him, I vum!" "Oh, you have, Uncle Abram! You have!" agreed Louise, and burst, into laughter herself. "It is wonderful how you did it! It is marvelous! How _could_ you?" "Nothin' easier, when you come to think on't," replied Cap'n Abe. "I'd talked so much 'bout Cap'n Am'zon that he was a fixed idea in people's minds. I said when he come I'd go off on a v'y'ge. I'd fixed ev'rything proper for the exchange when you lit down on me, Niece Louise. Hi-mighty!" grinned Cap'n Abe, "at first I thought sure you'd spilled the beans."