But here Mr. Juby, who didn't quite approve of his new client being called "young fellow," explained that he was a gentleman who had neither come to settle nor travel, but only to see the place generally. Also, he informed him, as if the whole thing was settled--which it wasn't--that Mr. Crafer had hired the late Sir Barnaby Briggs's yacht from him and was going to make some tours in it. "Oh!" said the other, scraping the frozen sugar off the rim of his empty glass as he spoke, and sucking it off his finger--"Oh! if that's all, he's welcome enough to go to the Virgin Isles if he wants to. I thought he wanted to shove some dollars into coco-growing or Liberian coffee. A tourist, eh?" "That's all," said Reginald, "only a tourist." "Well! there's good enough sailing round the Virgin Isles or any others in these parts, if you want to sail; but I thought Mr. Juby said you were a sailor. Now, if you are, what do you want to go sailin' about for? Isn't dry land good enough for a sailor off duty?" "Do you know the Virgin Islands?" asked Reginald, not caring to notice the man's cantankerous disposition. "Know 'em! I guess I do know 'em! all the lot. And not one worth a red. Which do you particular want to see?" "All of them," replied Reginald. "Perhaps Tortola in particular." "Tortola! the rottenest of the lot, except, perhaps, Anegada. Or, p'raps I'd best say Coffin Island. That is about the--there! well!----I'll be----" "Coffin Island!" exclaimed Reginald, now very wary. "That's a sweet name! What sort of a place is that?" "Kinder place fit to go and die in, to just roll yourself up in and kick. Kind of a dog's hole, covered with palm trees, gros-gros, moriches and all, Spanish baggonets and sich like. A place as is all yellow and voylet and pink and crimson with flowers, and smells like a gal's boodwar," (this was an awful mouthful for him, but he got it out safely), "though I don't know much about gals' boodwars neither. My daughters ain't got none." "It must be lovely," Reginald said quietly. "Love--ly!" the man echoed. "Love--ly! Bah! there ain't five pounds' trade in it a year. The oranges and guavas ain't worth fetching when you can get 'em in the other places without half the trouble, nor more ain't the nutmegs. Likewise, it's chock-a-block full of tarantula spiders and centipides." "In such a case I suppose it is uninhabited," Reginald hazarded. "Well, no it ain't, not altogether," the other replied. "Leastways, that's to say partly. There's a fisher fellow lives there when he ain't nowheres else, and he's got a son and a darter. They've been a living there for over a cent'ry, I've heard tell." "What!" exclaimed Reginald and Juby together while others round who had been listening to the discourse burst out laughing. "For over a cent'ry and more," the man went on, "this fellow Bridges' family have been living there----" "Only," chimed in another man, "that ain't the name. It ain't Bridges at all. It's Aldridge."