“You’re runnin’ it, be you?” inquired Mr. Brackett, raising his voice and glancing toward Broadway’s store platform where loafers were listening.

“That’s what we be,” shouted the Cap’n.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re really runnin’ it—­and that it ain’t closed,” said Mr. Brackett, “‘cause I’m applyin’ here to a public house to be put up, and if you turn me away, havin’ plenty of room and your sign up, by ginger, I’ll sue you under the statute and law made and pervided.  I ain’t drunk nor disorderly, and I’ve got money to pay—­and I’ll have the law on ye if ye don’t let me in.”

Mention of the law always had terrifying effect on Cap’n Sproul.  He feared its menace and its intricacies.  It was his nightmare that law had long been lying in wait on shore for him, and that once the land-sharks got him in their grip they would never let go until he was sucked dry.

“I’ve got witnesses who heard,” declared Mr. Brackett, waggling mittened hand at the group on the platform.  “Now you look out for yourself!”

He finished unharnessing his horse and led the animal toward the barn, carolling his everlasting lay about “Old Hip Huff, who went by freight to Newry Corner, in this State.”

“There’s just this much about it, Cap,” Hiram hastened to say; “me ‘n’ you have got to run the shebang till we can unlo’d it.  We can’t turn away custom and kill the thing dead.  I’ll ’tend the office, make the beds, and keep the fires goin’.  You—­you—­” He gazed at the Cap’n, faltering in his speech and fingering his nose apprehensively.

“Well, me what?” snapped the ex-master of the Jefferson P. Benn.  But his sparkling eyes showed that he realized what was coming.

“You’ve allus been braggin’,” gulped Hiram, “what a dabster you was at cookin’, havin’ been to sea and—­”

“Me—­me?” demanded the Cap’n, slugging his own breast ferociously.  “Me put on an ap’un, and go out there, and kitchen-wallop for that jimbedoggified junacker of a tin-peddler?  I’ll burn this old shack down first, I will, by the—­”

But Hiram entered fervent and expostulatory appeal.

“If you don’t, we’re sendin’ that talkin’-machine on legs off to sue and get damages, and report this tavern from Clew to Hackenny, and spoil our chances for a customer, and knock us out generally.”

He put his arm about the indignant Cap’n and drew him in where the loafers couldn’t listen, and continued his anxious coaxings until at last Cap’n Sproul kicked and stamped his way into the kitchen, cursing so horribly that the cat fled.  He got a little initial satisfaction by throwing after her the dirty dishes in the sink, listening to their crashing with supreme satisfaction.  Then he proceeded to get supper.

It had been a long time since he had indulged his natural taste for cookery.  In a half-hour he had forgotten his anger and was revelling in the domain of pots and pans.  He felt a sudden appetite of his own for the good, old-fashioned plum-duff of shipboard days, and started one going.  Then gingercake—­his own kind—­came to his memory.  He stirred up some of that.  He sent Hiram on a dozen errands to the grocery, and Hiram ran delightedly.