“So I heard unendin’ experiences of men who had gone to sea.  And at night I read everything I could get touchin’ on, an’ appertainin’ to, sea-farin’.  In my mind I’ve sailed the seven seas, charted unknown waters, went through all the perils I tell ’bout.  Yes, sir, I don’t dispute I’m a hi-mighty liar,” he repeated, sighing and shaking his head.

“But when I come here to the Shell Road, where there warn’t nobody knowed me, it struck me forcible,” pursued Cap’n Abe, “that my fambly bein’ so little known I could achieve a sort of vicarious repertation as a seagoin’ man.

“Ye see what I mean?  I cal’lated if I’d had a brother—­a brother who warn’t marked with a fear of the ocean—­he would ha’ been a sailor.  Course he would!  All us Silts was seafarin’ men!

“An’ I thought so much ‘bout this brother that I might ha’ had, and what he would ha’ done sailin’ up an’ down the world, learnin’ to be a master mariner, an’ finally pacin’ his own quarter-deck, that he grew like he was real to me, Niece Louise—­he re’lly did.  I give him a name.  ‘Am’zon’ has been a name in our fambly since Cap’n Reba Silt first put the nose of his old Tigris to the tidal wave of the Am’zon River—­back in seventeen-forty.  He come home to New Bedford and named his first boy, that was waitin’ to be christened, ‘Am’zon Silt.’

“So I called this—­this dream brother of mine—­’Am’zon.’  These Cardhaven folks warn’t likely to know whether I had a brother or not.  And I made up he went to sea when he was twelve—­like I told ye, my dear.  Ye-as.  I did hate to lie to ye, an’ you just new-come here.  But I’d laid my plans for a long while back just to walk out, as it were, an’ let these fellers ‘round here have a taste o’ Cap’n Am’zon Silt that they’d begun to doubt was ever comin’ to Cardhaven.  An’ hi-mighty!” exploded Cap’n Abe, with a great laugh, “I have give ’em a taste of him, I vum!”

“Oh, you have, Uncle Abram!  You have!” agreed Louise, and burst, into laughter herself.  “It is wonderful how you did it!  It is marvelous!  How could you?”

“Nothin’ easier, when you come to think on’t,” replied Cap’n Abe.  “I’d talked so much ’bout Cap’n Am’zon that he was a fixed idea in people’s minds.  I said when he come I’d go off on a v’y’ge.  I’d fixed ev’rything proper for the exchange when you lit down on me, Niece Louise.  Hi-mighty!” grinned Cap’n Abe, “at first I thought sure you’d spilled the beans.”

Louise rippled another appreciative laugh.  “Oh, dear!” she cried, clapping her hands together.  “It’s too funny for anything!  How you startled Betty!  Why, even Lawford Tapp was amazed at your appearance.  You—­you do look like an old pirate, Uncle Abram.”

“Don’t I?” responded Cap’n Abe, childishly delighted.

“That awful scar along your jaw—­and you so brown,” said the girl.  “How did you get that scar, Uncle Abram?”