"Well, you'd better not, because folks is liable to think we made a round of Pratt-street saloons afore we boarded the Tuckahoe."
"Dey sutt'nly 'll think we's liars, Cap. Jim."
"They certainly will, John."
For a week Captain Cromwell scanned the daily papers anxiously for news of the progress of the queer derelict. And each day, with equal curiosity, John Washington visited him to learn what he could.
"Thought as how it mout a bumped up down Norfolk way," said the crew.
"No, it hasn't," replied the Captain. "I guess it must be chasing up and down the ocean now."
"Golly, Cap. Jim, but dat dere was powerful queer."
"Are you sure, John, you've never told any one—not even Liza?"
"Go 'way, Cap'n, wha' for you s'pose I'se gwine tell de old woman?"
But he had. And her narrative, as circulated in Eastern-Shore cabins, was a vastly more moving tale than the simple unvarnished truth as you and I know it.