"All right. I wouldn't have him aboard if he could. Why don't he take his thundering dunnage and go for'ard, where he belongs, and cook me some grub when he knows I haven't had anything to eat sence sunup? Why don't he, I say?" With this Captain Duff turned and clumped heavily to the other side of the deck; while Bonny, hastily picking up the bag that had been the innocent cause of all this uproar, said, in a low voice, "Come on, Rick. It's all right." As they went forward together he dropped the bag down a tiny forecastle hatch. Then, after asking Alaric to cut some kindlings and start a fire in the galley stove, which was housed on deck, he dove into the cabin to see what he could find that could be cooked for dinner. When he reappeared a minute later, he found his crew struggling with an axe and a chunk of hard wood, from which he was vainly attempting to detach some slivers. He had already cut two deep gashes in the deck, and in another moment would probably have needed crutches as badly as the Captain himself. "Hold on, Rick!" cried the young mate, catching the axe-helve just as the weapon was making another erratic descent. "I find those grocery chaps haven't sent down any stores. So do you just run up there. It's two doors this side of Uncle Isaac's, you know, and hurry them along. I'll 'tend to the fire while you are gone." Gladly exchanging his unaccustomed, and what he considered to be very dangerous, task of wood-chopping for a task that he felt sure he could accomplish creditably, Alaric hastened away. He found the grocer's easily enough, and demanded of the first clerk he met why the stores for the sloop _Fancy_ had not been sent down. "Must have been the other clark, sir, and I suppose he forgot all about 'em; but I'll attend to the order at once, sir," replied the man, who took in at a glance Alaric's gentlemanly bearing and the newness of his nautical garb. "Have 'em right down, sir. Hard bread, salt junk, rice, and coffee, I believe. Anything else, sir?" "I'm sure I don't know," replied Alaric. "Going to take a run on the _Fancy_ yourself, sir?" "Yes." "Then of course you'll want some soft bread, a few tins of milk, half a dozen jars of marmalade, and a dozen or so of potted meats?" "I suppose so," assented the boy. "Step this way, sir, and let me show you some of our fine goods," suggested the clerk, insinuatingly.