"What are you tryin' to do, Samuel Peters? As the keeper of this 'ere light, I call upon you to explain your actions." Mr. Peters dropped the sticks and stared at Captain Eph in astonishment while one might have counted ten, and then asked irritably: "Is there anything in the rules an' regerlations to stop me from nailin' these boards together, an' standin' 'em up on end, if so be it can be done?" "Not a thing, Sammy, not a thing; but it makes Uncle Zenas an' me feel kind'er bad to see you jumpin' 'round at sich a rate. Does your old wound trouble you any?" By this time Mr. Peters began to understand somewhat of the fears in the minds of his comrades, and it all seemed to him very comical. He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks, and his mirth brought on such an attack of coughing that Sidney was really afraid he would be strangled. "Thought I'd gone crazy, eh?" he cried as soon as it was possible for him to speak. "You an' Uncle Zenas have been figgerin' how you could get me into the hospital, I s'pose? Crazy!" and again the first assistant laughed until he choked and gasped for breath. "Let me tell you, Cap'n Eph, that when I do go off the hooks you won't see me loafin' 'round peaceable as this, for I'll think I'm in front of Petersburg again, an' cut up in a way that you can't call pleasant." "But what are you tryin' to do, Sammy?" Captain Eph asked eagerly. "What's the meanin' of your runnin' 'round with them strips of board under your arm?" "I'm tryin' to set up what you might call a frame; but can't find a place to put it." "But, Sammy, it wouldn't stand against the first wave that ever washed over the ledge!" "I know that, Cap'n Eph, an' I only want it to hold together till 'bout eight o'clock to-night, an' then it can go drown itself for all I care." "Now you're talkin' queer, agin, Sammy," the old keeper said in a tone of real concern, and the first assistant replied as he struggled to restrain his mirth: "Look here, Cap'n Eph, jest try to hold in till eight o'clock to-night, an' then you'll understand all about it. This 'ere is a little surprise of mine, an' I reckon there ain't anythin' in the rules an' regerlations to prevent me from springin' it." Even Uncle Zenas was convinced by this time that Mr. Peters had not lost any portion of his mind, and Captain Eph returned to the kitchen, where he said, as if having solved some important problem: "What Sammy bought when he was ashore has got somethin' to do with the surprise he's countin' on givin' us, an' I s'pose we may as well let him have his fling, for he always was a good deal of a boy." As a matter of fact, so Uncle Zenas afterward told Sidney, Mr. Peters was two years older than Captain Eph, but one might have thought, from the way the others treated him, that the first assistant was a mere child as compared with them.