He did not possess Cap'n Abe Silt's imagination. He could not entertain these curious people with an apocryphal history of the gathering of his supposed treasure. And perhaps his very inability to explain made his fortune seem the more real to them all. Sarah, too, came to his rescue. She could not see Uncle Jonah disturbed. How careful she now was for the comfort of "the dear old soul!" It was really remarkable, as Aunt 'Poley said to the other visiting aunts, to see how devoted Sarah was to her last remaining blood-relative. "Let us hope he'll pay her out right, for it," whispered Mrs. Enoch Petty, the single doubting member of the tribe. Sarah's regard for Cap'n Jonah's comfort was fairly overpowering. She saw to it that tasty bits were heaped upon his plate and that his coffee cup was kept filled. At dessert time it was: "Pearly! don't forget to pass the cake again to Uncle Jonah. And that mock cherry pie I made deep special for him, 'cause he likes it so. Taste that beach plum sass, Uncle Jonah. I know you'll like it. Why! you ain't et more'n enough to keep a sand-piper alive." "Whatever!" remonstrated the master mariner. "You're killin' me with kindness, Sarah." And he could have said nothing which would have more thoroughly gratified Sarah Petty. "The Family" had heard his commendation with their own ears. Back in his own room he whispered to Pearl, who attended him at Sarah's behest with hot water, lemon, sugar, and a noggin of rum--a real holiday treat: "Whatever! I might's well be out o' Barnum's show, I've been exhibited so much. Nex' thing, Sarah Petty'll want me to roll over and bark at the word of command. I dunno but I could stand her meannesses better than I can her good will." He managed to escape from time to time to the sanctum of the front room. They did not follow him. But they invited him to join the general company on all manner of pretexts. The womenfolk, as he declared, tried to make a fool of him, while the men endeavored to pump him dry regarding his adventures in the far East, hoping thereby to get a line on his method of amassing a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars. He could see, too, that he was going to be a mark for all local charities and objects of need. Mrs. Enoch Petty, who was a member of all the women's clubs and associations there were on the Cape, tried on several occasions to get a contribution from Cap'n Jonah for one or another of the causes she patronized. But Sarah Petty, like Orrin with the men visitors, guarded Uncle Jonah's pocket with vigilance. There was no reason that she could see why the old mariner's fortune should be scattered abroad on charities, suffrage clubs, orphanages, or other so-called worthy causes. "Charity begins at home," was Sarah Petty's fixed belief, and as far as she was concerned she proposed to see that it stayed there.