In a twinkling Uncle Zenas had a cup of hot coffee to the little fellow's mouth, and he was forced to drink, for the cook, in his eagerness to take some part in the rescue, was literally pouring it down his throat. "Why don't you go an' fix up my bed so's we can put him in it, Sammy? What good do you suppose it does to stand 'round here first on one foot an' then on the other as if you was a brazen image?" Captain Eph demanded fiercely of his first assistant, and the latter ran up the spiral stairway, hurriedly, muttering something about the folly of treating a case such as the one in hand, before first studying the "rules and regerlations" to learn whether the Board had made any provisions for similar emergencies. Thanks to the ministrations of Captain Eph and Uncle Zenas, the half-drowned and wholly numbed lad was partially restored to a normal condition; but when he tried to speak the old keeper said sharply: "There's no need of any tongue-waggin' yet a while. You're goin' inter my bed, an' stay there till you begin to feel somethin' like yourself, though I don't reckon it would do any harm if you told us how long you'd been alone in the boat." "Last night, and yesterday, and all the night before that," the lad said with a sigh, and then, as his eyes filled with tears, Captain Eph gathered him in his arms, saying to Uncle Zenas as he began to ascend the staircase: "I reckon it won't do any harm if you warm the blankets of my bed. This poor little shaver's teeth are chatterin' yet; but after he's heated up a bit, an' gets the sleep that's due him, he'll be a different lookin' lad." Mr. Peters had had much the same thought, for he now appeared in the doorway with an armful of bed-clothes, and once more a "mess" of fish-cakes was burned to a cinder as Uncle Zenas gave all his attention to making the little stranger comfortable. Ten minutes later the keeper and his first assistant descended to the kitchen once more, and Captain Eph said in a whisper as he looked around to see what the possibilities for breakfast might be: "I vow an' declare if that poor little shaver's eyes didn't shut before we'd got him well tucked up in bed. I don't understand how he stood the rough usage, for he ain't much more'n a baby, an' if my suspicions are right, he's been through what would pull down a tolerable strong man." "What do you make of it?" Uncle Zenas asked while he hovered helplessly around the stove, as if entirely at a loss to know what he could serve for breakfast after spoiling so many prime fish-cakes. "There's no need of our strainin' our brains over it, 'cause it won't be a great while before he'll be able to tell the whole story," Captain Eph replied as he poured for himself a cup of coffee. "But what are you goin' to do with him?" Mr. Peters asked as he followed the example of his superior officer.