“‘Twas a big haul—­one o’ the biggest lumps o’ ambergris ever brought into the port of New Bedford,” concluded Cap’n Amazon.  “Helped make the owners rich, and the Old Man, too.  Course, I got my sheer; but a boy’s sheer on a whaler them days wouldn’t buy him no house and lot.  So I went to sea again.”

“You must have been at sea almost all your life, Cap’n Amazon.”

“Pretty nigh.  I ain’t never lazed around on shore when there was a berth in a seaworthy craft to be had for the askin’.  I let Abe do that,” he added, in what Louise thought was a rather scornful tone.

“Why, I don’t believe Uncle Abram has a lazy bone in his body!  See the nice business he has built up here.  And he told me he owned shares in several vessels and other property.”

“That’s true,” Cap’n Amazon agreed promptly.  “And a tidy sum in the Paulmouth National Bank.  I got a letter to the bank folks he left to introduce me, if I needed cash.  Yes, Abe’s done well enough that way.  But he’s the first Silt, I swanny! that ever stayed ashore.”

“And now you are going to remain ashore yourself,” she said, laughing.

“I’m going to try it, Louise.  I’ve done my sheer of roaming about.  Mebbe I’ll settle down here for good.”

“With Cap’n Abe?  Won’t that be fine?”

“Yep.  With Abe,” he muttered and remained silent for the rest of the meal.

On Saturday the store trade was expected to be larger than usual.  Louise told Cap’n Amazon she would gladly help wait on the customers; but he would not listen to that for a moment.

“I’m not goin’ to have you out there in that store for these folks to look over and pick to pieces, my girl,” he said decidedly.  “You stay aft and I’ll ’tend to things for’ard and handle this crew.  Besides, there’s that half-grown lout, Amiel Perdue.  Abe said he sometimes helped around.  He knows the ship, alow and aloft, and how the stores is stowed.”

The morning was still young when Betty came downstairs in hot rage and attacked Cap’n Amazon.  It seemed she had gone up to give the chambers their usual weekly cleaning, and had found the room in which the captain slept locked against her.  It was Cap’n Abe’s room and it seemed it was Cap’n Abe’s custom—­as it was Cap’n Amazon’s—­to make his own bed and keep his room tidy during the week.  But Betty had always given it a thorough cleaning and changed the bed linen on Saturdays.

“What’s that room locked for?  I want to know what you mean?” the woman demanded of Cap’n Amazon.  “Think I’m goin’ to work in a house where doors is locked against me?  I’m as honest as any Silt that ever hobbled on two laigs.  Nex’ thing, I cal’late, you’ll be lockin’ the coal shed and countin’ the sticks in the woodpile.”

She had much more to say—­and said it.  It seemed to make her feel better to do so.  Cap’n Amazon looked coolly at her, but did not offer to take the key out of his trousers’ pocket.