Cap’n Amazon appeared from his “cabin” when the first church bells began to ring, arrayed in a much wrinkled but very good suit of “go ashore” clothes of blue, which were possibly those he had worn when he arrived at the store on the Shell Road.  He wore a hard, glazed hat of an old-fashioned naval shape and, instead of the usual red bandana, he wore a black silk handkerchief tied about his head.

Just why he always kept his crown thus swathed, Louise was very desirous of knowing.  Yet she did not feel like asking him such a very personal question.  Had it been Cap’n Abe she would not for a moment have hesitated.  Louise had heard of men being scalped by savages and she was almost tempted to believe that this had happened to Cap’n Amazon in one of his wild encounters.

“We’ll go to the First Church, Niece Louise,” he said firmly.  “Abe always did.  These small-fry craft, like the Mariner’s Chapel, are all right, I don’t dispute; but they are lacking in ballast.  It’s in my mind to attend the church that’s the most like a well-founded, deep-sea craft.”

Louise was more impressed than amused by this philosophy.  The captain seemed to have put on his “Sunday face” like everybody else.  As they came out of the yard old Washington Gallup hobbled by, but instead of stopping to chatter inconsequently, for he was an inveterate gossip, he saluted the captain respectfully and hobbled on.

Indeed, the captain was a figure on this day to command profound respect.  It is no trick at all for a big man to look dignified and impressive; but Cap’n Amazon was not a big man.  However, in his blue pilot-cloth suit, cut severely plain, and with his hard black hat on his head he made a veritable picture of what a master-mariner should be.

On his quarter-deck, in fair or foul weather, Louise was sure that he had never lacked the respect of his crew or their confidence.  He was distinctly a man to command—­a leader and director by nature.  He was, indeed, different from the seemingly easy-going, gentle-spoken Cap’n Abe, the storekeeper.

They had scarcely started up the Shell Road when the whir of a fast-running automobile sounded behind them and the mellow hoot of a horn.  Louise turned to see a great touring car take the curve from the direction of The Beaches and glide swiftly toward them.  Lawford Tapp was guiding the car.

“Then he’s a chauffeur as well as fisherman and boatman,” she thought.

She could not see how he was dressed under the coat he wore; but he touched his cap to her and Cap’n Amazon as he drove by.

Beside Lawford on the driving seat was a plump little man who seemed to be violently quarreling with the chauffeur.  In the tonneau was a matronly woman and three girls including “L’Enfant Terrible,” all, Louise thought, rather overdressed.