There was only one table, and I couldn't write if I had wanted to, so I opened my trunk and began to put some of my things in order. We had arranged, before we had fallen out, that we should go home on the next steamer, and Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were going too. We had been in Nassau nearly a month, and had seen about as much as was to be seen—in an ordinary way. As for me, I couldn't afford to stay any longer, and that had been the thing that had settled the matter, as far as Colbert and I were concerned. But now he might choose to stay, and come home by himself. However, there was no way of my knowing what he thought, and I supposed that I had no real right to make him come with me. At any rate, if I had, I didn't intend to exercise it.
While I was looking over the things in my trunk, I came across the box of dominoes that Corny had given us to remember her by. It seemed like a long time ago since we had been sitting together on the water-battery at St. Augustine! In a few minutes I took the box of dominoes in my hand and went over to Colbert. As I put them on the table he looked up.
"What do you say to a game of dominoes?" I said. "This is the box Corny gave us. We haven't used it yet."
"Very well," said he, and he pushed away his paper and emptied the dominoes out on the table. Then he picked up some of them, and looked at them as if they were made in some new kind of a way that he had never noticed before; and I picked up some, too, and examined them. Then we began to play. We did not talk very much, but we played as if it was necessary to be very careful to make no mistakes. I won the first game, and I could not help feeling a little sorry, while Colbert looked as if he felt rather glad. We played until about our ordinary bed-time, and then I said:
"Well, Colbert, I guess we might as well stop," and he said:
"Very well."
But he didn't get ready to go to bed. He went to the window and looked out for some time, and then he came back to the table and sat down. He took his pen and began to print on the lid of the domino-box, which was of smooth white wood. He could print names and titles of things very neatly, a good deal better than I could.
When he had finished, he got up and began to get ready for bed, leaving the box on the table. Pretty soon I went over to look at it, for I must admit I was rather curious to see what he had put on it. This was the inscription he had printed on the lid:
"GIVEN TO
WILL AND RECTUS
BY
CORNY.
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA."
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