about my little game; I poured my couple of fingers, and dropped it down as innocent as a lamb before I knew what I was doing.  By George! my boy, ’twas like-opening the lock-gates; I was just heavenly gay before morning.  There was one good thing about it, though—­I never told Emily I was going to swear off; I was going to surprise her, so I had the disappointment all to myself.  Maybe she isn’t as happy as your wife; but whatever else I’ve done, or not done, I’ve never lied to her.”

“It’s a pity you hadn’t promised her then, before you tried your experiment,” said Fred. The captain shook his head gravely, and replied: 

“I guess not; why, I’d have either killed somebody or killed myself if I’d gone on a day or two longer.  I s’pose I’d have got along better if I’d had anybody to keep me company, or reason with me like a schoolmaster; but I hadn’t.  I didn’t know anybody that I dared trust with a secret like that.”

“I hadn’t reformed then, eh?” queried Fred.

“You? why you’re one of the very fellows I dodged!  Just as I got aboard the boat—­I came down late, on purpose—­I saw you out aft.  I tell you, I was under my blankets, with a towel wrapped around my jaw, in about one minute, and was just a-praying that you hadn’t seen me come aboard.”

Fred laughed, but his laughter soon made place for a look of tender solicitude.  The unexpected turn that had been reached in the conversation he had so dreaded, and the sympathy which had been awakened in him by Crayme’s confidence and openness, temporarily made of Fred Macdonald a man with whom Fred himself had never before been acquainted.  A sudden idea struck him.

“Sam,” said he, “try it over again, and I’ll stay by you.  I’ll nurse you, crack jokes, fight off the blues for you, keep your friends away.  I’ll even break your neck for you, if you like, seeing it’s you, if it’ll keep you straight.”

“Will you, though?” said the captain, with a look of admiration, undisguised except by wonder.  “You’re the first friend I ever had, then.  By thunder! how marrying Ettie Wedgewell did improve you, Fred!  But,” and the captain’s face lengthened again, “there’s a fellow’s reputation to be considered, and where’ll mine be after it gets around that I’ve sworn off?”

“Reputation be hanged!” exclaimed Fred. “Lose it, for your wife’s sake.  Besides, you’ll make reputation instead of lose it:  you’ll be as famous as the Red River Raft, or the Mammoth Cave—­the only thing of the kind west of the Alleghanies.  As for the boys, tell them I’ve bet you a hundred that you can’t stay off your liquor for a year, and that, you’re not the man to take a dare.”

“That sounds like business,” exclaimed the captain springing to his feet.

“Let me draw up a pledge,” said Fred, eagerly, drawing, pen and ink toward him.

“No, you don’t, my boy,” said the captain, gently, and pushing Fred out of the room and upon the guards.  “Emily shall do that.  Below there!—­Perkins, I’ve got to go uptown for an hour; see if you can’t pick up freight to pay laying-up expenses somehow.  Fred, go home and get your traps; ‘How’s the accepted time,’ as your father-in-law has dinged at me, many a Sunday, from the pulpit.”