'Liphalet had almost shut himself up in his little box of a house during the last few days. He shunned his fellow men--even Cap'n Jonah with whom he had been friendly until recently--like any hermit. And here it was the morning of the day before Christmas. He scuffled out into his close kitchen, redolent of countless messes of fried fish and potatoes, and set the lamp with its smoky chimney on the deal board table before shaking the stove grate and opening all the drafts for "full steam ahead." It was a cold morning. The long promised gale out of the northeast was driving the snow and sleet against the window with a "whish! whish!" like the sound of fretful waves along the sands. Even through his thick blue yarn socks which he had knitted himself the ex-steward felt the cold seep in under the door, the latch of which rattled to the ghostly hand of the gale. He turned up the wick of the lamp and sat down with a sigh to slice potatoes for frying. It was plain by the woebegone expression on 'Liphalet's face that his heart was not in this usually grateful matutinal occupation. Suddenly returning the knife and half a soggy boiled potato to the table, he shrugged his feet into a pair of canvas shoes and, rising, went to the rear door. He held it half open against the insistence of the wind, staring off across the flatlands toward the sea from under the sharp of one hand. The snow squalls, driven in from the far-flung sea-line, burst like bomb-shells along the shore, then swept inland in clouds of fine snow-spray which stung like nettles even 'Liphalet's weather-burned cheek. Between these drifting sheets of sleet he dimly saw outlined the houses of the neighbors on either side of the Shell Road and dotting the open fields. Each was pricked out at this hour by the smoke of early kindled kitchen fires, sucked out of the chimneys in fantastic forms by the boisterous wind. "It's goin' to be a humdinger," muttered 'Liphalet. "Last over to-morrow, like enough, an' sp'ile everything. Ha! Sue an' them other foolish folks that's been wishing for a white Christmas will get their wish, I don't dispute. Ha!" With this second snort of disgust he shut the gale out again. The draft caused by the closing door sucked the flame of the lamp up through the chimney and it went out with a "plop." The steel gray light of the winter's dawn filtered in at the window, and, with the firelight, furnished the kitchen a partial illumination. 'Liphalet settled himself again in the low rocking chair and picked up the knife and the potato. "Ha! Sue an' the rest on 'em will get all the white Christmas they want," he repeated. "Christmas--_bah_!" The emphasis with which he thus expressed his spleen startled Bo'sun from his nest in the wood-box behind the stove, and he came forth yawning and stretching to rub a morning's greeting against his master's shin. But even the friendliness of the cat did not temper the man's unaccustomed mood.