"Yes, yes, so I do, Judah. But do you know this one?
'Hi, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.'
What have you got to say to that, eh?"
Judah stared at him. His chin quivered.
"Wh—wh—" he stammered. "What have I got to say to that? Why, I ain't got nawthin' to say to it. There ain't no sense to it. That's Mother Goose talk, that's all that is, What's that got to do with the weather?"
"It would have somethin' to do with it if a cow jumped over the moon, wouldn't it?"
"Eh? But—— Oh, creepin' prophets, Cap'n Sears, what's the use of you and me wastin' our breath over such foolishness? You're just bein' funny, that's all." His expression changed, and he smiled broadly. "Why, by Henry," he declared, "I ain't heard you talk that way afore since you shipped aboard this General Minot craft along of me. That's the way you used to poke fun at me aboard the old Wild Ranger when we was makin' port after a good v'yage. What's happened to spruce you up so? Doctor ain't told you any special good news about them legs of yours, has he, Cap'n? Limpin' Moses, I wisht that was it."
Sears shook his head. "No, Judah," he replied. "No such luck as that. It's just my natural foolishness, I guess. And I'm goin' to the theater to-night, too, all by myself. Think of it. Do you wonder I feel like a boy in his first pair of long trousers?"
Mr. Cahoon's whisker-framed face expressed doubt and foreboding. "I ain't sure yit that I'm doin' right in lettin' you pilot yourself down to that town hall," he declared. "It ain't that I'm scart of the horse runnin' away, or nothin' like that, you understand, but——"
His lodger burst into a roar of laughter.