"I will eat marline-spikes," said Mr. Daddles, "if you've got any of them on board. I've never seen one,--though I've heard of them a great deal." "I'll eat crackers," declared Jimmy Toppan. "So will I," said Sprague, "and glad to get 'em. I might be gnawing a bone in jail, now, instead." "And there's no milk," said the Chief, "we were going to get some, and some bread, this morning in Bailey's Harbor." "If you had endured the sufferings that _I_ have in Bailey's Harbor--" began Sprague. "There are three dozen eggs," said Pete, "and that's more than four apiece, and there is plenty of bacon,--stop talking and get busy." In ten minutes we were eating breakfast. They had trouble to keep us all supplied with fried eggs, until two skillets were put into commission. Then there was silence for a time. "There's an apple pie down there," remarked Sprague, as he helped himself to another cup of coffee. Mr. Daddles hurried below, and soon came up with the pie. "I hope some of you will," said he, "you do, in this region, don't you?" "In obscure parts of the ulterior," said Pete, "I have heard that the habit lingers of eating pie for breakfast. It's merely a tradition in my family, I regret to say." "The old, robust stock is dying out," said Sprague, mournfully, "but my father has told me that in his youth he often saw his father do it. We are over civilized, but if there should be any great national crisis,--a war, or anything like that,--I have no doubt that New England would rally once again, and--" "I am so much disappointed," said Daddles, turning slowly about, with the pie in one hand, "my poor grandmother has often told me about it, and I did hope to see the weird, old custom practised on its native heath--won't you? Or you?" He turned to one after the other of us. "Yer can give me a mejum piece," observed Gregory the Gauger, looking up from his fifth fried egg. Mr. Daddles cut a large slice in evident delight. Gregory ate it, slowly and thoughtfully. "Have some more?" The Gauger held out his plate. "Jes' mejum," said he. After breakfast, we of the "Hoppergrass" held a council. "The Captain will come back to Bailey's Harbor," said Jimmy Toppan, "but we can't go there at all. We'll have to go somewhere else, and send a message to him." "We might go to that place--what's its name? Squid Cove," Ed Mason suggested. "And send a message to him by the car-driver," I added. "We'll have to write it in cipher," said Mr. Daddles, "for it would never do to have it fall into the hands of Eb." "How do you know that he will come back there?" I asked. "I don't," said Jimmy, "but it's the most likely thing to happen, isn't it?" "The most likely thing doesn't seem to happen on this trip," remarked Ed Mason, who was feeding Simon, the duck, with cracker crumbs. Sprague broke in on our conversation.