From that time—­or from the moment Lawford Tapp had first seen him on the store porch that morning—­the storekeeper had played a huge game of bluff.  And what a game it had been!

In his character of Cap’n Amazon he had commanded the respect—­even the fear—­of men who for years had considered Cap’n Abe a butt for their poor jests.  It was marvelous, Louise thought, when one came to think of it.

And yet, not so marvelous after all, when she learned all that lay behind the masquerade.  There had always been, lying dormant in Cap’n Abe’s nature, characteristics that had never before found expression.

Much she learned on this evening at supper, and afterward when the store had been closed and they were alone in the living-room.  Diddimus, who still had his doubts of the piratical looking captain, lay in Louise’s lap and purred loudly under the ministration of her gentle hand, while Cap’n Abe talked.

It was a story that brought to the eyes of the sympathetic girl the sting of tears as well as bubbling laughter to her lips.  And in it all she found something almost heroic as well as ridiculous.

“My mother marked me,” said Cap’n Abe.  “Poor mother!  I was born with her awful horror of the ravenin’ sea as she saw the Bravo an’ Cap’n Josh go down.  I knew it soon—­when I was only a little child.  I knew I was set apart from other Silts, who had all been seafarin’ men since the beginnin’ of time.

“And yet I loved the sea, Niece Louise.  The magic of it, its mystery, its romance and its wonders; all phases of the sea and seafarin’ charmed me.  But I could not step foot in a boat without almost swoonin’ with fright, and the sight of the sea in its might filled me with terror.

“Ah, me!  You can have no idea what pains I suffered as a boy because of this fear,” said Cap’n Abe.  “I dreamed of voyagin’ into unknown seas—­of seein’ the islands of the West and of the East—­of visitin’ all the wonderful corners of the world—­of facin’ all the perils and experiencin’ all the adventures of a free rover.  And what was my fate?

“The tamest sort of a life,” he said, answering his own question.  “The flattest existence ever man could imagine.  Hi-mighty!  Instead of a sea rover—­a storekeeper!  Instead of romance—­Sargasso!” and he gestured with his pipe in his hand.  “You understand, Louise?  That’s what I meant when I spoke of the Sargasso Sea t’other day.  It was my doom to live in the tideless and almost motionless Sea of Sargasso.

“But my mind didn’t stay tame ashore,” pursued Cap’n Abe.  “As a boy I fed it upon all the romances of the sea I could gather.  Ye-as.  I suppose I am greatly to be blamed.  I have been a hi-mighty liar, Louise!

“It began because I heard so many other men tellin’ of their adventoors, an’ I couldn’t tell of none.  My store at Rocky Head where I lived all my life till I come here (mother came over to Cardhaven with her second husband; but I stayed on there till twenty-odd year ago)—­my store there was like this one.  There’s allus a lot of old barnacles like Cap’n Joab and Washy Gallup clingin’ to such reefs as this.