“No.”
Silence again. Then Ralph said, “The other position, Captain, is very much like this one in some respects. It will place me in a country town, even smaller than Orham, where there are few young people, no amusements, and no society, in the fashionable sense of the word.”
“Humph! I thought you didn't care much for them things.”
“I don't.”
To this enigmatical answer the Captain made no immediate reply. After a moment, however, he said, slowly and with apparent irrelevance, “Mr. Hazeltine, I can remember my father tellin' 'bout a feller that lived down on the South Harniss shore when he was a boy. Queer old chap he was, named Elihu Bassett; everybody called him Uncle Elihu. In them days all hands drunk more or less rum, and Uncle Elihu drunk more. He had a way of stayin' sober for a spell, and then startin' off on a regular jamboree all by himself. He had an old flat-bottomed boat that he used to sail 'round in, but she broke her moorin's one time and got smashed up, so he wanted to buy another. Shadrach Wingate, Seth's granddad 'twas, tried to fix up a dicker with him for a boat he had. They agreed on the price, and everything was all right 'cept that Uncle Elihu stuck out that he must try her 'fore he bought her.
“So Shad fin'lly give in, and Uncle Elihu sailed over to Wellmouth in the boat. He put in his time 'round the tavern there, and when he come down to the boat ag'in, he had a jugful of Medford in his hand, and pretty nigh as much of the same stuff under his hatches. He got afloat somehow, h'isted the sail, lashed the tiller after a fashion, took a nip out of the jug and tumbled over and went fast asleep. 'Twas a still night or 'twould have been the finish. As 'twas he run aground on a flat and stuck there till mornin'.
“Next day back he comes with the boat all scraped up, and says he, 'She won't do, Shad; she don't keep her course.'
“'Don't keep her course, you old fool!' bellers Shad. 'And you tight as a drumhead and sound asleep! Think she can find her way home herself?' he says.
“'Well,' says Uncle Elihu, 'if she can't she ain't the boat for me.'”
Ralph laughed. “I see,” he said. “Perhaps Uncle Elihu was wise. Still, if he wanted the boat very much, he must have hated to put her to the test.”