"Can't ye put a little sperrit into 'er, Gurd? Is this 'ere a fun'al? That 's it! Now then--'Touch and go is a good pilot.'" With these words, Captain Pharo sprang with ox-like levity from the floor, and amid the giddy swiftness of the music I was occasionally conscious of hearing his mailed heels flow together with a clash that made the rafters ring. He descended at last ominously, but when the reverberations died away I looked, and saw that he was whole. Notely came over and shook hands with him, laid an arm proudly on his proud shoulder, and led him away to the "mess" room, where his stewards were busy. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" cried a voice from the fondest of the Artichokes, seizing him with an exultant pride which he affected to hide under derogatory language; "was that you I seen in there jest now, stompin' the frescoes off'n the ceilin'?" "Altogether most entertaining jig that has been danced this evening," said one of Notely's broadcloth guests, very superciliously. "Oh, I hain't danced none yit," said Captain Pharo, too confident to show contempt; "only warmin' my spavins;" and he heartlessly turned the complete flower in view for the further annihilation of the gentleman in black. "Ef I c'd 'a' got on my scuffs," said Captain Leezur, his sun-visage showing against the crimson back of an easy-chair, "I don't know but what I sh'd been 'most tempted ter jine the darnce myself. But no; I couldn't pervail with 'em--so long sence I've wrarstled with 'em--so I come right 'long in my felts." "No, ye can't dance 'The Wracker's Darter,' that is, not as she orter be danced, in felts," said Captain Pharo; "she 's a tune 't wants the emphasis brought right down onto her; felts won't do it, nor scuffs neither." "That off foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish she 's sartin to hold back----" "Ye'd orter be thankful 't ye only has to contend with natch'al diserbilities," interposed Captain Pharo, "'n' don't have any o' these d--d ructions played on ye." "Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of supercilious temperament. "Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from Washin'ton, ain't ye? Washin'ton, D.C.?" "Certainly." "P'litical centre o' the United States of Ameriky?" "Why, yes." "An' you don't know what ructions be!" Loud laughter greeted this sally; only the man who had been in California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed upon me. "Then I'll tell ye what ructions be," proceeded Captain Pharo, breathing stertorously through his pipe; "it's repealin' all our optional acts, for one thing! We can't institoot an optional act down here, but what you go an' repeal it!" "Oh, stuff!" said the high and hot-headed young man, quite taken off his level by the laughter round him; "I don't either!"