"Shipmates, we was only jokin' about diwidin' of 'em, but arter the commodore crossed our course we was the maddest lot of officers an' men you ever seed, but that was all there was to it. You can be sure that nobody never got athwart the hawse of Commodore Ringtailboom deliberate; he was a peppery old gent, sure, an' 'twas as much as a man's life was worth to go agin him. "Now, that's an example of how disorganizin' wimmin 'ud be on board a ship." "Jack," said little Futtocks, amid the laughter with which this amazing story was greeted, "do you mean to tell me that this is a true yarn?" "Hev I brung you up, Master Futtocks, to doubt me?" asked the old man, his twinkling eyes belying the resentment in his voice. "I am not doubting you, Jack. I'm just asking you a question." "Wall, wall, I'll tell ye wot to do. The next time you see Commodore Rattlin you jest ask him wot was done with them feemale slaves we captured in the _Stamico_ w'en we was together in the old _Grampus_ in the Med't'ranean in 1803." "But, Jack----" "Eight bells, sir," said the old man, rising as the four couplets proclaimed the hour. "All the starboard watch!" he cried, shrilling his pipe as a sign that the play-time was over. THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT THE STORY OF A WANDERING SENSATION "I loaf and invite thee, my soul, Leave thy fetters of flesh and be free; Soar abroad, scorning earthly control, On a sort of a spiritual spree." TIMOTHY BLAKE Common sense--hard, practical common sense--is a great and important factor in this world's concerns. I am not a common-sense person myself,--though Geraldine will tell you that I am a man of uncommon sense,--but it is to common-sense people that I address myself; people who say, if they ever so far forget themselves as to read "Rappaccini's Daughter," for instance, or that other story by the gifted son of his gifted father, which hides its weird fascination under the name of "Archibald Malmaison," and you ask them if they like the stories: "Oh, of course not; I never heard of such improbable things. Why, how is it possible for a man?" etc. It is to these people I write. I live in the enterprising Western city of Kalamalant. As my family and Geraldine's family have lived there many years, we are all well known, and any of my neighbors, among whom are a judge of the District Court, a retired major-general of the army, a United States Senator, and other persons of undoubted veracity, can affirm the truth of the strange incidents of which I am the principal subject. Geraldine will say that this is not the only case in which I am the principal subject, royally assuming for the once--but I digress. Geraldine says I always take too much time in getting at the point of the story, and as Geraldine is the only critic of whom I am afraid, here goes.