Jed Winslow selected a new and unpainted sailor from the pile near him. He eyed it dreamily.
"Well, Gabe," he observed, "if you must, you must, I suppose. Seems to me you're leavin' at the most interestin' time. We've been talkin' about this and that, same as you say, and now you're leavin' just as 'this' has got here. Maybe if you wait—wait—a—"
The sentence died away into nothingness. He had taken up the brush which he used for the blue paint. There was a loose bristle in it. He pulled this out and one or two more came with it.
"Hu-um!" he mused, absently.
Captain Sam was tired of waiting.
"Come, finish her out, Jed—finish her out," he urged. "What's the rest of it?"
"I cal'late I'll run along now," said Mr. Bearse, nervously moving toward the door.
"Hold on a minute," commanded the captain. "Jed hadn't finished what he was sayin' to you. He generally talks like one of those continued-in-our-next yarns in the magazines. Give us the September installment, Jed—come."
Mr. Winslow smiled, a slow, whimsical smile that lit up his lean, brown face and then passed away as slowly as it had come, lingering for an instant at one corner of his mouth.
"Oh, I was just tellin' Gabe that the 'this' he was talkin' about was here now," he said, "and that maybe if he waited a space the 'that' would come, too. Seems to me if I was you, Gabe, I'd—"