“I don’t know about that,” Cap’n Billy replied, “but I guess her son’s too much for her: she’s only Gardiner, and he’s Gardiner and Mulbridge both.” No one changed countenance, but a sense of Cap’n Billy’s wit sparely yet satisfyingly glimmered from the eyes of Cap’n George and the storekeeper, and Cap’n Jabez closed his knife with a snap and looked up. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “she’s seen enough of him to know beforehand that there would be too much of him.” “I never rightly understood,” said Hackett, “just what it was about him, there in the army—coming out a year beforehand, that way.” “I guess you never will,—from _him_,” said Cap’n Jabez. “Laziness, I guess,—too much work,” said old Cap’n Billy. “What he wants is a wife with money. There ain’t a better doctor anywhere. I’ve heard ’t up to Boston, where he got his manifest, they thought everything of him. He’s smart enough, but he’s lazy, and he always was lazy, and harder’n a nut. He’s a curious mixtur’. ’N’ I guess he’s been on the lookout for somethin’ of this kind ever sence he begun practising among the summer boarders. Guess he’s had an eye out.” “They say he’s poplar among ’em,” observed the storekeeper thoughtfully. “He’s been pooty p’tic’lar, or _they_ have,” said Cap’n Jabez. “Well, most on ’em’s merried women,” Hackett urged. “It’s astonishin’ how they do come off and leave their husbands, the whole summer long. They say they’re all out o’ health, though.” “I wonder,” said old Cap’n Billy, “if them coaliers is goin’ to make a settled thing of haulin’ inside before they signal a pilot.” “I know _one_ thing,” answered Cap’n Jabez, “that if any coalier signals _me_ in the channel, I’ll see her in hell first” He slipped his smooth, warm knife into his pocket, and walked out of the store amid a general silence. “He’s consid’ble worked up, about them coaliers,” said old Cap’n Billy. “I don’t know as I’ve heard Jabez swear before—not since he was mate of the Gallatin. He used to swear then, consid’able.” “Them coaliers is enough to make any one swear,” said Cap’n George. “If it’s any ways fair weather they won’t take you outside, and they cut you down from twenty-five dollars to two dollars if they take you inside.”