"We all know that, Uncle Zenas. If there's anything you want'er say, why not come right out with it, instead of beatin' clean around the bush?"
"I was thinkin' of that little shaver up-stairs. He ain't rigged to stand very much cold weather, an' he's so terribly small that he'd get lost in one of our coats, yet he's got to have somethin' of the kind."
"I declare I'd never thought of that, Uncle Zenas, an' yet you're in the right," Captain Eph exclaimed. "But what's to be done about it?"
"I was thinkin' if you'd let me have that uniform coat of your'n which you've outgrowed, I'd cut it down to fit him," the cook replied modestly, for it was well known that, as Mr. Peters often expressed it, "he was a master hand with a needle."
"You can have anything I've got, Uncle Zenas, if it's to be used for that lad. I don't understand why it is; but the little shaver has got inter my heart mighty deep, even though he's only been here since daylight," and the keeper gazed out into the fog as if he saw there a picture of a "little shaver" who called him "father" many, many years ago, but who now, with his mother, awaited the old man on the shores of that golden river which neither pain, nor sorrow, nor sin can cross.
"S'posen you go after it. I can be rippin' the seams apart while we're smokin'."
Captain Eph went softly up the ladder, tip-toeing his way across the floor of the chamber so softly that those in the kitchen below failed to detect the slightest sound, and when he returned he held in his hand a very respectable looking uniform coat.
"But that's your second-best!" Uncle Zenas exclaimed.
"Yes, yes, don't you allow I've got sense enough to know it? The other is worn so bad it wouldn't pay to make over, an', besides, I've been thinkin' of gettin' a new one, so you'd better take this."
A certain moisture in the old keeper's eyes prevented the cook from making any comment on what seemed like the sacrifice of a good garment, as he set about ripping it apart, and once more Mr. Peters detailed his plans for repairing the motor boat, insisting every now and then that there was no reason why he should not be at work upon it, instead of idling the time away.