Miss Dawes looked up from the task of stroking poor Bos'n's hair.
“I don't,” she said, “I'm glad of it.” Then she added, laughing nervously: “Cap'n Whittaker, how could you be so cool? It was like a play. I declare, you were just splendid!”
CHAPTER XIV
A CLEW
Josiah Dimick has a unique faculty of grasping a situation and summing it up in an out-of-the-ordinary way.
“I think,” observed Josiah to the excited group at Simmons's, “that this town owes Cy Whittaker a vote of thanks.”
“Thanks!” gasped Alpheus Smalley, so shocked and horrified that he put the one-pound weight on the scales instead of the half pound. “THANKS! After what we've found out? Well, I must say!”
“Ya-as,” drawled Captain Josiah, “thanks was what I said. If it wan't for him this gang and the sewin' circle wouldn't have nothin' to talk about but their neighbors. Our reputations would be as full of holes as a skimmer by this time. Now all hands are so busy jumpin' on Whit, that the rest of us can feel fairly safe. Ain't that so, Gabe?”
Mr. Lumley, who had stopped in for a half pound of tea, grinned feebly, but said nothing. If he noticed the clerk's mistake in weights he didn't mention it, but took his package and hurried out. After his departure Mr. Smalley himself discovered the error and charged the Lumley account with “1 1/4 lbs. Mixed Green and Black.” Meanwhile the assemblage about the stove had put Captain Cy on the anvil and was hammering him vigorously.