The water began to hiss and bubble in the kettle. 'Liphalet reached for the coffee-pot in which the ground coffee had been soaking in a cup of cold water over night, and filled it from the boiling kettle. The aroma permeated all the kitchen atmosphere immediately--an odor to tempt the appetite of any hungry man. But there was something not normal about 'Liphalet Truitt on this morning. That keen edge to his appetite--a never-failing zest at mealtime which had been his for nearly half a century--failed him now. He dumped the handful of sliced potatoes into the pan where the pork was sizzling, set it forward, and returned to his chair. The kitchen was as compact and handy as his stateroom had always been at sea, and from the rack overhead he reached down his battered flute. Bo'sun fled--back arched and tail swollen to twice its natural size--when 'Liphalet extracted from the instrument those introductory mournful sounds which were always the prelude to his rendition of any of his loved sea-ditties--even to "Fisher's Hornpipe." Music was the single topic on which Bo'sun and 'Liphalet Truitt did not agree. The flute on this morning, however,--never failing comforter as it had been during his many voyages--did not soothe the ex-steward's troubled breast. Its wail, mingling with the whine of the wind, might have been the cry of the banshee of the gale rattling at the door latch for sacrament. "Drat the thing!" snarled 'Liphalet, flinging down the flute with exasperation. "Nothin' does go right, and ain't likely to go right again ever, I reckon." Then he added the phrase that seemed to be both the text and context of his jeremiad: "Christmas--_bah_!" Suddenly he began wrinkling his nose like a hound on a cold scent. "Somethin' burnin'?" he questioned audibly. "By Hannah, it's them 'taters!" He rescued but a scorched remnant of the potatoes and dumped it with a grunt of disgust into Bo'sun's pan on the hearth; making a cold snack with coffee do for his own breakfast. It was easy, indeed, to see that 'Liphalet Truitt was by no means his normal self. He had washed his plate, cup and saucer and rinsed out the coffee pot before he ventured into the partially sheltered porch again to view the snowy world. In stinging phalanx the sleet continued to march across the open fields. The hard ground was laced over with a thin scale of ice. The road was deserted; but he presumed the committee would by and by gather at the chapel to hang the Christmas greens and trim the tree with refurbished tinsel ornaments and newly strung ropes of pink and white popcorn. He pulled the battered southwester over his ears and reached for the key to the chapel door. The women would come to a cold and cheerless audience room if did he not step across and light the fire. Then, with the key in his hand, he stopped, suddenly venting another snort of disgust and derision. "Christmas--_bah_!" Then he hung up the key.