“Why! it’s Mr. Long!” said Captain Corbet. “Why, Mr. Long! Glad to see you. Sit down. Why, you railly frightened me. Why, I’m railly pleased to see you. I am, railly.” “What do you mean,” cried Mr. Long, in a great passion, “by this mockery? Here have we been waiting for you ever since morning, and we’ve had to put the ballast on board with our own hands; and I come here and find you quite indifferent. What do you mean, sir? Are you going, or not?” “Good gracious!” said Captain Corbet. “The ballast! Why, railly now! Did you go and put it on board? Why, I do declare!” Mr. Long gave a dark frown, and with a violent effort smothered his indignation. “Are you coming, or not?” said he, sternly. “Coming? Why--not jest now. You see there’s the babby.” And he put his brown finger under the chin of his offspring, and actually forgot himself so far as to whistle to it; after which he cast a furtive glance at his visitors, as though half expecting that they would admire the child. “Where’s Mrs. Corbet? It’s _her_ place to mind the child--your place is on board the vessel.” “Why, I can’t put the babby on the floor, as I see; nor I can’t take him on board.” “Where’s Mrs. Corbet?” “Why, you see, she started off airly to hunt up some parygolic. The babby’s troubled with wind, and--” “When will she be back?” interrupted Mr. Long. Captain Corbet shook his head solemnly. “It would take a man with a head as long as a horse to tell that,” said he, sententiously. “Where is she then? I’ll drive off and get her.” “She! law bless you, I don’t know no more’n a onhatched chick.” “Don’t know! You surely know which way she went.” “Wal, she kind o’ tho’t she’d go to the village, and then she kind o’ hinted she’d visit her married sister that lives on Billy Jackson’s farm. They’re down with the measles, and--” “Bother the measles! Do you mean to say that you let her go off, and quietly sat down here to nurse your baby, when you ought to have been at work?” “I didn’t let her go. She walked off herself. ‘Benjamin,’ says she, ‘take care of the babby.’ He’s dreadful fond of me. Won’t be fed by nobody else. I ginrally feed him at nights when he wakes. An’ a dreadful high-sperited creetur is that child’s mother. An’ they shan’t abuse him. No-o-o-o,” he added, abruptly, turning his conversation toward the “babby” himself, who began to make faces and utter sounds premonitory of a howl. Mr. Long turned abruptly away. “The man’s an idiot!” said he to Mr. Simmons. “We’ll have to get some one else to go with us.” “See here,” said he, turning to Captain Corbet, who was stirring up some pap to feed his “babby;” “I’ve engaged your schooner, and I mean to start in her. All our things are on board, and we can’t lose a whole day. You’ve broken your engagement; so I’ll go without you. I’ll find somebody that can sail her. I’ll go to Captain Pearson, or old McNeil, or somebody.”