Captain Jabez did not return until late that Saturday evening; but as soon as he set foot on shore I went to him and asked him if he could, in any way, get us to Sanpritchit that night, offering to pay him liberally for the service.

"I\'ve got a sailboat," said he, "and ye\'d be right welcome to it if it was here; but it ain\'t here. I lent it to Captain Neal, of Brimley, having no present use for it, and he won\'t bring it back till next week some time. There\'s a dory here, to be sure; but Sanpritchit\'s twenty-five miles away, and that\'s too far to go in a dory, especially at night. What\'s your hurry?"

"I have very important business in Sanpritchit," I answered, "and if it is possible I must go there to-night."

"Sanpritchit\'s a queer place to have business in," said Captain Jabe; "and it\'s a pity ye didn\'t think of it this mornin\', when ye might have gone with me and took the train to Barley, and there\'s a stage from there to Sanpritchit."

"Captain Jabez," said I, "as there seems to be no other way for me to do this thing, I will pay you whatever you may think the service worth, if you will take me to Sanpritchit in your grocery boat, and start immediately. It will be slow work traveling, I know, but I think we can surely get there before morning."

The grocer-captain looked at me for a moment, with his eyes half shut; then he set down on the pier a basket which had been hanging on his arm, and, putting both hands in his pockets, stared steadfastly at me.

"Do you know," he remarked presently, "that that \'ere proposition of yours puts me in mind of a story I heard of a California man and a New York man. The California man had come East to spend the winter, and the New York man was a business acquaintance o\' his. The California man called at the New York man\'s office before business hours; and when he found the New York man hadn\'t come down town yet, he went up town to see him at his house. It was a mighty fine house, and the New York man, being proud of it, took the California man all over it. \'Look here,\' said the California man, \'what will you take for this house, furniture and all, just as it stands?\' \'I\'ll take a hundred and twenty thousand dollars,\' said the New York man. \'Does that include all the odds and ends,\' asked the California man,—\'old magazines, umbrellas, needles and pins, empty bottles, photographs, candlesticks, Japanese fans, coal ashes, and all that kind of thing, that make a house feel like a home? My family\'s comin\' on from California with nothin\' but their clothes, and I want a house they can go right into and feel at home, even to the cold victuals for a beggar, if one happens to come along.\' \'If I throw in the odds and ends, it will be one hundred and twenty-five thousand,\' said the New York man. \'That\'s all right,\' said the California man, \'and my family will arrive, with their clothes, on the train that gets here at 6.20 this afternoon; so if your family can get out of the house before that time, I\'m ready to pay the money, cash down.\' \'All right,\' said the New York man, \'I\'ll see that they do it.\' And at ten minutes after six the New York family went out with their clothes to a hotel, and at twenty minutes of seven the California family came to the house with their clothes, and found everything all ready for \'em, the servants havin\' agreed to stay at California wages.

"Now, then," continued Captain Jabez, "I don\'t want to hurt nobody\'s feelin\'s, and I wouldn\'t say one word that would make the smallest infant think less of itself than it did afore I spoke, but it does strike me that that there proposition of yours is a good deal like the California man\'s offer to the New York man."

"Well," said I, "that turned out very well. Each got what he wanted."

"Yes," replied Captain Jabez, "but this ain\'t New York city. No, sir, not by a long shot. I am just as willin\' to accommodate a fellow-man, or a fellow-woman, for that matter, as any reasonable person is; but if the President of the United States, and Queen Victoria, and the prophet Isaiah was to come to me of a Saturday night, after I\'d just got home from a week\'s work, and ask me to start straight off and take them to Sanpritchit, I\'d tell \'em that I\'d be glad to oblige \'em, but it couldn\'t be done: and that\'s what I say to ye, sir,—neither more nor less." And with this he picked up his basket and went into the house.

I was not discouraged, however, and when the captain came out I proposed to him that he should take me to Sanpritchit the next day.

"No, sir," said he. "I never have sailed my grocery boat on Sunday, and I don\'t feel like beginnin\'."

I walked away, but shortly afterward joined him on board his vessel, which he was just about to leave for the night.

"Captain," I asked, "when does Sunday end in this part of the country?"

"Well, strictly speaking, it\'s supposed to end at sunset, or commonly at six o\'clock."

"Very well," said I; "if you will start with me for Sanpritchit at six o\'clock to-morrow evening, I will pay you your price."

I made this offer in the belief that, with ordinary good fortune, we could reach our destination before the Raynor yacht weighed anchor on Monday morning.

Captain Jabez considered the matter. "I am going to Sanpritchit on Monday, any way," said he; "and if you\'re in such a hurry to be there the first thing in the morning, I\'d just as lieve sail to-morrow evening at six o\'clock as not."

It was not much after the hour at which some people in that part of the country, when they have a reason for it, still believe that Sunday comes to an end, that the grocery boat left her pier with Captain Jabez, Abner, Walkirk, and me on board. There was nothing at all exhilarating in this expedition. I wanted to go rapidly, and I knew we should go slowly. I had passed a dull day, waiting for the time to start, and, to avoid thinking of the slow progress we should make, I soon turned in.

I woke very early, and went on deck. I do not know that I can remember a more disagreeable morning. It was day, but the sun was not up; it was not cloudy, but there was a filmy uncertainty about the sky that was more unpleasant than the clouds. The air was cold, raw, and oppressive. There was no one on deck but Abner, and he was at the wheel, which, on account of the grocery store occupying so large a portion of the after part of the vessel, was placed well forward. Only a jib and mainsail were set, and as I came on deck these were fluttering and sagging, as Abner carefully brought the vessel round. Now I saw that we were floating slowly toward the end of a long pier, and that we were going to land.

As I leaned over the side of the vessel, I did not wonder that Captain Jabez thought Sanpritchit was not much of a place to do business in. There were few houses, perhaps a dozen, scattered here and there along a low shore, which rose, at one end of the place, into a little bluff, behind which I saw a mast or two. On the pier was a solitary man, and he was the only living being in sight. It was that dreary time before breakfast, when everything that seems cheerless is more cheerless, everything that is sad more sad, everything that is discouraging more discouraging, and which right-minded persons who are able to do so spend in bed.

Gradually the vessel approached the pier, and Abner, to whom I had not yet ............