“There! There she is! The Nup-ti-al Chime. A Journal of Matrimony. I see a piece about it in the Herald the other day, and sent a dime for a sample copy. It's chock-full of advertisements from women that wants husbands.” Captain Eri put on his spectacles and hitched his chair up to the table. After giving the pages of the Nuptial Chime a hurried inspection, he remarked: “There seems to be a strong runnin' to 'vi-va-ci-ous brunettes' and 'blondes with tender and romantic dispositions.' Which of them kinds are you sufferin' for, Perez? Oh, say! here's a lady that's willin' to heave herself away on a young and handsome bachelor with a income of ten thousand a year. Seems to me you ought to answer that.” “Oh, hush up, Eri! 'Tain't likely I'd want to write to any of them in there. The thing for us to do would be to write out a advertisement of our own; tell what sort of woman we want, and then set back and wait for answers. Now, what do you say?” Captain Eri looked at the advocate of matrimony for a moment without speaking. Then he said: “Do you really mean it, Perez?” “Sartin I do.” “What do you think of it, Jerry?” “Think it's a good idee,” said that ancient mariner decisively. “We've got to do somethin', and this looks like the only sensible thing.” “Then Eri's GOT to do it!” asserted Captain Perez dogmatically. “We agreed to stick together, and two to one's a vote. Come on now, Eri, we'll match.” Captain Eri hesitated. “Come on, Eri!” ordered Captain Jerry. “Ain't goin' to mutiny, are you?” “All right!” said Captain Eri, “I'll stick to the ship. Only,” he added, with a quizzical glance at his companions, “it's got to be settled that the feller that's stuck can pick his wife, and don't have to marry unless he finds one that suits him.” The others agreed to this stipulation, and Captain Perez, drawing a long breath, took a coin from his pocket, flipped it in the air and covered it, as it fell on the table, with a big hairy hand. Captain Eri did likewise; so did Captain Jerry. Then Captain Eri lifted his hand and showed the coin beneath; it was a head. Captain Jerry's was a tail. Under Captain Perez' hand lurked the hidden fate. The Captain's lips closed in a grim line. With a desperate glance at the others he jerked his hand away. The penny lay head uppermost. Captain Jerry was “stuck.” Captain Eri rose, glanced at his watch, and, taking his hat from the shelf where the dishes should have been, opened the door. Before he went out, however, he turned and said: “Perez, you and Jerry can be fixin' up the advertisement while I'm gone. You can let me see it when I come back. I say, Jerry,” he added to the “sacrifice,” who sat gazing at the pennies on the table in a sort of trance, “don't feel bad about it. Why, when you come to think of it, it's a providence it turned out that way. Me and Perez are bachelors, and we'd be jest green hands. But you're a able seaman, you know what it is to manage a wife.”