“'Safe!' he sings out. 'SAFE! Well, by--gosh! Pard, I hate to say it, but it's the Lord's truth--you had me doin' my “Now I lay me's”!' “For a minute we looked at each other. Then says I, sort of thinkin' out loud, 'I cal'late,' I says, 'that whether a man's brave or not depends consider'ble on whether he's used to his latitude. It's all accordin'. It lays in the bringin' up, as the duck said when the hen tried to swim.' “He nodded solemn. 'Pard,' says he, 'I sure reckon you've called the turn. Let's shake hands on it.' “So we shook; and . . .” Captain Bailey stopped short and sprang from his chair. “There's my train comin',” he shouted. “Good-by, Sol! So long, Barzilla! Keep away from fortune tellers and pretty servant girls or YOU'LL be gettin' married pretty soon. Good-by.” He darted out of the waiting room and his companions followed. Mr. Wingate, having a few final calls to make, left the station soon afterwards and did not return until evening. And that evening he heard news which surprised him. As he and Captain Sol were exchanging a last handshake on the platform, Barzilla said: “Well, Sol, I've enjoyed loafin' around here and yarnin' with you, same as I always do. I'll be over again in a month or so and we'll have some more.” The Captain shook his head. “I may not be here then, Barzilla,” he observed. “May not be here? What do you mean by that?” “I mean that I don't know exactly where I shall be. I shan't be depot master, anyway.” “Shan't be depot master? YOU won't? Why, what on airth--” “I sent in my resignation four days ago. Nobody knows it, except you, not even Issy, but the new depot master for East Harniss will be here to take my place on the mornin' of the twelfth, that's two days off.” “Why! Why! SOL!” “Yes. Keep mum about it. I'll--I'll let you know what I decide to do. I ain't settled it myself yet. Good-by, Barzilla.” CHAPTER XVII ISSY'S REVENGE The following morning, at nine o'clock, Issy McKay sat upon the heap of rusty chain cable outside the blacksmith's shop at Denboro, reading, as usual, a love story. Issy was taking a “day off.” He had begged permission of Captain Sol Berry, the permission had been granted, and Issy had come over to Denboro, the village eight miles above East Harniss, in his “power dory,” or gasoline boat, the Lady May. The Lady May was a relic of the time before Issy was assistant depot master, when he gained a precarious living by quahauging, separating the reluctant bivalve from its muddy house on the bay bottom with an iron rake, the handle of which was forty feet long. Issy had been seized with a desire to try quahauging once more, hence his holiday. The rake was broken and he had put in at Denboro to have it fixed. While the blacksmith was busy, Issy laboriously spelled out the harrowing chapters of “Vivian, the Shop Girl; or Lord Lyndhurst's Lowly Love.”