"That's what's puzzlin' me a good bit," Captain Eph replied. "I ain't sure but that there may be more than one post-office in Porto Rico. I never was on the island, so don't know much about it."
"Why not send your letter to the light?" Uncle Zenas asked. "No matter what kind of an island it is, there's bound to be a light on it."
"An' who's to tell me where or what it is?" the keeper cried petulantly. "The place may only be buoyed out, or have nothin' more'n a beacon on it."
"Wa'al, you've got the report of the Board in your room, an' all the facts are certain to be put down in that, since we've adopted the place so to speak," Mr. Peters suggested, and Captain Eph's face brightened at once, as he cried:
"There are times, Sammy, when you do really seem to have quite a lot of sense! Now any idjut ought'er thought of doin' that same thing; but I've been so mixed up since daybreak that my brain seems to be off somewhere on a strike. Wait a bit while I fetch the book."
"Sneak inter the room quiet-like, or you may wake the lad," Uncle Zenas said warningly, and Captain Eph, who was already half-way through the door in the floor, stopped to say in a tone of reproof:
"Any one would think, to hear you two old shell-backs talk, that I never knew anything about babies, an' yet I've handled more of 'em than you ever saw."
Then the keeper disappeared from view, and a full five minutes elapsed before he reappeared, to explain his long absence by saying:
"I couldn't help stoppin' to look at the little rascal as he lays there asleep. I declare he is handsome as a picter, an' twice as sweet."
"Did you get the report?" Mr. Peters asked impatiently.