CHAPTER VII.
BIAS ARRIVES.
Captain Tobias Hunken sat patiently and ponderously upon a wooden sea-chest, alone on the platform, but stacked about by such a miscellany of luggage as gave him no slight resemblance to Crusoe on his raft. Besides parcels, boxes, carpet-bags, canvas-bags, tarpaulin-bags, it included a pile of furniture swathed in straw, a parrot-cage covered with baize, and a stone jar calculated to hold nine gallons of liquor.
He was a dark-bearded man, heavy shouldered, of great bulk, and by temperament apparently phlegmatic; for when Captain Cai arrived, panting, red in the face, stammering contrition, he betrayed neither emotion nor surprise.
"'Twas all my thoughtlessness!" cried Captain Cai.
"What's the matter?" asked Captain Tobias. "No hurry, is there?
We've retired."
"If I'd known I was so late!"
"Five minutes." Captain Tobias gazed across at the station clock, then at his friend's face, as if comparing the two. "You've altered your appearance recently. Which some might say 'twas for the better."
"Glad you think so," said Captain Cai, modestly pleased.
"Others, again, mightn't. But, there!" added Captain Tobias with sudden intensity. "Who cares what folks say? If you chose to go about like a Red Indian, 'twouldn' be no affair o' theirs, I should hope?"