“That’s so,” he said; “that’s so, Mary-’Gusta.  You can keep it all your life, and when you get to be an old woman and married and have grandchildren then you can give it to them.”

Captain Shadrach, who had taken up his napkin preparatory to tucking it under his chin, turned in his chair and glared at the unconscious steward.

“Well, by the jumpin’ fire!” he exclaimed, with conviction.  “The feller is sartinly possessed.  He’s lovesick, that’s what’s the matter with him.  All he can talk about is somebody’s gettin’ married.  Are you cal’latin’ to get married, Isaiah?”

“Me?  What kind of fool talk is that?”

“Who’s the lucky woman?”

“There ain’t no lucky woman.  Don’t talk so ridic’lous!  All I said was that when Mary-’Gusta was old and married and had—­”

“There you go again!  Married and children!  Say, did it ever run acrost your mind that you was a little mite previous?”

“I never said children.  What I said was when she was old and had grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren!  Well, that’s a dum sight more previous.  Let’s have breakfast, all hands, for the land sakes!  Isaiah’ll have us cruisin’ along with the third and fourth generation in a few minutes.  I’m satisfied with this one!”

That evening, at bedtime, as the partners separated in the upper hall to go to their respective rooms, Zoeth said: 

“Shadrach, this has been a mighty nice Christmas for us all, ain’t it?”

Captain Shad nodded emphatically.  “You bet!” he declared.  “Don’t seem to me I ever remember a nicer one.”

“Nor I, neither.  I—­I wonder—­”

“Well, heave ahead.  What are you waitin’ for?  What do you wonder?”

“I was just wonderin’ if ’twas right for us to be so happy.”

“Right?”

“Yes.  Have we been—­well, good enough this past year to deserve happiness like this?”

Shadrach grinned.

“I ain’t puttin’ in any testimony on my own hook,” he said, dryly, “but I don’t seem to remember your bein’ desperately wicked, Zoeth.  Course you may have got drunk and disorderly that time when Mary-’Gusta and I left you and went to Boston, but I kind of doubt it.”

“Hush, hush, Shadrach!  Don’t joke about serious things.  What I mean is have you and I walked the Lord’s way as straight as we’d ought to?  We’ve tried—­that is, seems ’s if we had—­but I don’t know.  Anyhow, all this afternoon I’ve had a funny feelin’ that you and me and Mary-’Gusta was—­well was as if the tide had been comin’ in for us all these years since she’s been livin’ with us, and as if now ’twould begin to go out again.”

The Captain laughed.  “And that’s what you call a funny feelin’!” he exclaimed.  “Zoeth, I’ve got a funny feelin’, too, but I know what’s the reason for it—­the reason is turkey and plum puddin’ and mince pie and the land knows what.  When a couple of old hulks like you and me h’ist in a cargo of that kind it’s no wonder we have feelin’s.  Good night, shipmate.”