“In spite of everything,” says Old Hickory.  “True, we haven’t been shipwrecked, or endured hardship, or spilled any gore.  But we have outfaced a lot of ridicule.  If the whiskered old sinners who hid away this stuff had met as much they might have given up piracy in disgust.  Who knows?”

With that Mr. Ellins snips the end from a fat black cigar, jams his hands in his pockets, and spreads his feet wide apart.  He’s costumed in a flannel outing shirt open at the neck, and a pair of khaki trousers stuffed into hip rubber boots with the tops turned down.  Also his grizzly hair is tousled and his face is well smeared up with soot or something.  Honest, if he’d had a patch over one eye and gold rings in his ears he could have qualified as a bold, bad buccaneer himself.  Only there’s an amiable cut-up twinkle under them shaggy brows of his, such as I’d never seen there before.

“Killam,” says he, “why don’t you chortle?”

“I—­I beg pardon?” says Rupert.

He’s sittin’ on a log, busy rollin’ a cigarette, and in place of his usual solemn air he looks satisfied and happy.  That’s as much as he can seem to loosen up.

“Great pickled persimmons, man!” snorts Old Hickory.  “Let’s be human.  Come, we’re all tickled to death, aren’t we?  Let’s make a noise about it, then.  Torchy, can’t you start something appropriate?”

“Sure!” says I.  “How about doin’ a war dance?  Yuh-huh!  Yuh-huh!  Get in step, Vee.  Now we’re off.  Yuh-huh!  Yuh-huh!”

“Fine!” says Old Hickory, droppin’ in behind Vee and roarin’ out the Sagawa patter like a steam siren.  “Yuh-huh!  Yuh-huh!  Come, Captain.  Fall in, Cornelia.  Yuh-huh!  Yuh-huh!”

Would you believe it?  Well, Auntie does.  I never thought it was in the old girl.  But say, there she is, her gray hair streamin’ down over her shoulders, her skirts grabbed up on either side, and lettin’ out the yelps easy and joyous.  Even Rupert has to grin and join in.

Round and round that treasure heap we prances, like so many East Side kids ‘round a Maypole in Central Park, with the yuh-huhs comin’ faster and louder, until finally Auntie slumps on the sand and uncorks the only real genuine laugh I’ve ever known her to be guilty of.  No wonder Vee stops and rushes over to her.

“Why, Auntie!’” says Vee.  “What’s the matter?”

“Matter?” says Auntie, breathin’ hard and chucklin’ in between.  “Why, my dear child, I haven’t done anything so absurd as this since—­since I was forty, and—­and it has done me a world of good, I’m sure.”

What do you know about that?  Admits she carried on as late as forty!  And here I’d supposed she was born scowlin’ about the time tabasco sauce was invented.  Well, once more I got to revise my ideas about her.  Maybe she ain’t any frostier underneath than the rest of us.

“Allow me, Cornelia, to present you with the palm,” says Mr. Ellins, handin’ her a palmetto leaf.  “As a war dancer you betray evidence of previous proficiency.  Doesn’t she, Torchy?”