When he had got so far in his musings, his host recalled him to the present by continuing, "I dunno ez we've a very good claim to the pictur; but there ain't no heirs turned up, so ez the Cap'n wuz a little behind in his board bills, we sort o' kep' it." Flint sat drumming with his fingers on the table, while his host still maundered on after the fashion of old age, which has so few topics that it cannot drop them with the light touch-and-go of youth. Flint had already firmly determined that he would be the possessor of that portrait; but he was too shrewd to make any further advances now. Instead, he turned again to the subject of "The Aquidneck," and, rising, made his way to the porch, where he almost walked over a speckled hen so nearly a match for the floor that his near-sighted eyes failed to perceive her, paying as little heed to her clucking and fluttering as he bestowed upon the smiles of a girl who stood in the doorway and moved, with conspicuous civility as he passed. He stalked around to the corner of the porch where stood his long boots, for which he exchanged his low ties of russet leather, and, picking up fishing-tackle and crabbing nets, started off at a brisk pace for the shore of the pond, leaving Marsden to follow with the pail of dinner. When all these were stowed away in the locker of "The Aquidneck," together with a straw-covered flask and a volume of Omar Khayyam, Flint bade a cheerful good-bye to Marsden, who stood rolling up his shirt-sleeves, and giving copious advice. The amateur skipper cast off from the little dock, lowered the centreboard, and stretched himself lazily in the stern, with one hand on the tiller. Peace was in his heart, and a pipe in his mouth--what could man ask more of the gods? The white sails of "The Aquidneck" fluttered in the light breeze as if tremulous with the ecstasy of motion. The sea, beyond the low grass-covered sand-bar which enclosed the pond, lay bright and smooth to southward, its surface dotted with craft of various sizes. Here skimmed a white-winged schooner; there panted and puffed a tug absurdly inadequate to its tow of low-lying coal-barges. Far on the horizon, a swelling island raised its bulk, purple as Capri, against the golden haze. Flint might have been a better sailor had he not been so good a swimmer; but, having no fear of the consequences of a sudden bath, he took all risks, sailed into the very apple of the eye of the wind, and habitually fastened his sheet,--a practice strongly reprehended by old Marsden. "There's a new boat on the pond," said Flint to himself, as a cat-rigged craft, white-hulled with a band of olive, shot out from behind a point of rock. "Her lines are rather good. A good sailor aboard too, I should say, for she runs free and yet steady. I'd like to try a race with the chap some day; maybe it would be hardly fair if he's a new comer, for I know the pond like--Damn it! what's that?"