“Well, you fellers look as if you'd had a rough v'yage,” commented Captain Eri, slipping out of his own jacket and pulling his chair up beside those of his friends. “What's the trouble?” “Gosh, Eri, I'm glad to see you!” exclaimed Captain Perez, drawing the hand, just referred to, across his forehead and thereby putting that portion of his countenance into mourning. “How do you spell conscientious?” “I don't, unless it's owner's orders,” was the answer. “What do you want to spell it for?” “We've writ much as four hundred advertisements, I do believe!” said Captain Jerry, “and there ain't one of them fit to feed to a pig. Perez here, he's got such hifalutin' notions, that nothin' less than a circus bill 'll do him. _I_ don't see why somethin' plain and sensible like 'Woman wanted to do dishes and clean house for three men,' wouldn't be all right; but no, it's got to have more fancy trimmin's than a Sunday bunnit. Foolishness, I call it.” “You'd have a whole lot of women answerin' that advertisement, now wouldn't you?” snorted Captain Perez hotly. “'To do dishes for three men!' That's a healthy bait to catch a wife with, ain't it? I can see 'em comin'. I cal'late you'd stay single till Jedgment, and then you wouldn't git one. No, sir! The thing to do is to be sort of soft-soapy and high-toned. Let 'em think they're goin' to git a bargain when they git you. Make believe it's goin' to be a privilege to git sech a husband.” “Well, 'tis,” declared the sacrifice indignantly. “They might git a dum-sight worse one.” “I cal'late that's so, Jerry,” said Captain Eri. “Still, Perez ain't altogether wrong. Guess you'd better keep the dishwashin' out of it. I know dishwashin' would never git ME; I've got so I hate the sight of soap and hot water as bad as if I was a Portugee. Pass me that pen.” Captain Perez gladly relinquished the writing materials, and Captain Eri, after two or three trials, by which he added to the paper decorations of the floor, produced the following: “Wife Wanted--By an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits. Must be willing to Work and Keep House shipshape and aboveboard. No sea-lawyers need apply. Address--Skipper, care the Nuptial Chime, Boston, Mass.” The line relating to sea-lawyers was insisted upon by Captain Jerry. “That'll shut out the tonguey kind,” he explained. The advertisement, with this addition, being duly approved, the required fifty cents was inclosed, as was a letter to the editor of the matrimonial journal requesting all answers to be forwarded to Captain Jeremiah Burgess, Orham, Mass. Then the envelope was directed and the stamp affixed. “There,” said Captain Eri, “that's done. All you've got to do now, Jerry, is to pick out your wife and let us know what you want for a weddin' present. You're a lucky man.” “Aw, let's talk about somethin' else,” said the lucky one rather gloomily. “What's the news up at the depot, Eri?”