She jibed—­oh, yes, she jibed!  If anybody says she didn’t you send ’em to me.  I give you my word that that flat-iron jibed twice—­ once for practice, I jedge, and then for business.  She commenced by twisting and squirming like an eel.  I jest had sense enough to clamp my mittens onto the little brass rail by the stern and hold on; then she jibed the second time.  She stood up on two legs, the boom come over with a slat that pretty nigh took the mast with it, and the whole shebang whirled around as if it had forgot something.  I have a foggy kind of remembrance of locking my mitten clamps fast onto that rail while the rest of me streamed out in the air like a burgee.  Next thing I knew we was scooting back towards Dillaway’s, with the sail catching every ounce that was blowing.  Jonadab was braced across the tiller, and there, behind us, was the Honorable Philip Catesby-Stuart, flat on his back, with his blanket legs looking like a pair of compasses, and skimming in whirligigs over the slick ice towards Albany.  He hadn’t had nothing to hold onto, you understand.  Well, if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have b’lieved that a human being could spin so long or travel so fast on his back.  His legs made a kind of smoky circle in the air over him, and he’d got such a start I thought he’d never stop a-going.  He come to a place where some snow had melted in the sun and there was a pond, as you might say, on the ice, and he went through that, heaving spray like one of them circular lawn sprinklers the summer folks have.  He’d have been as pretty as a fountain, if we’d had time to stop and look at him.

“For the land sakes, heave to!” I yelled, soon’s I could get my breath.  “You’ve spilled the skipper!”

“Skipper be durned!” howls Jonadab, squeezing the tiller and keeping on the course; “We’ll come back for him by and by.  It’s our business to win this race.”

And, by ginger! we did win it.  The way Jonadab coaxed that cocked hat on runners over the ice was pretty—­yes, sir, pretty!  He nipped her close enough to the wind’ard, and he took advantage of every single chance.  He always could sail; I’ll say that for him.  We walked up on Archie like he’d set down to rest, and passed him afore he was within a half mile of home.  We run up abreast of Dillaway’s, putting on all the fancy frills of a liner coming into port, and there was Ebenezer and a whole crowd of wedding company down by the landing.

“Gosh!” says Jonadab, tugging at his whiskers:  “’Twas Cape Cod against New York that time, and you can’t beat the Cape when it comes to getting over water, not even if the water’s froze.  Hey, Barzilla?”

Ebenezer came hopping over the ice towards us.  He looked some surprised.

“Where’s Phil?” he says.

Now, I’d clean forgot Phil and I guess Jonadab had, by the way he colored up.

“Phil?” says he.  “Phil?  Oh, yes!  We left him up the road a piece.  Maybe we’d better go after him now.”