"Traitor—nothing!" I said.
"Oh, the silly baker!" said Sasa.
"He speaks like a delirious person," said Seumanutafa.
"Now about that ham," said the Chief Justice, belligerently coming forward and speaking in rich Swedish accents, "when I send my servant for a ham, Mr. Oppenstedt, I want a good ham—not a great, coarse, fat, stinking lump of dog meat——"
"Let's go," I said to Sasa; "Captain Morse is holding back the Alameda for a talk, and I know there's an iced bucket of something in the corner of his cabin."
"Wish the dear old captain would land and punch his head off!" said Sasa vindictively.
"Whose head?" I asked.
"Silver Tongue's," she returned.
Sasa had always plagued me to get up a moonlight sailing party on the Nukanono, a little fifteen-ton schooner of mine that plied about the Group. From one reason and another the thing had never come off, though we had talked and arranged it all time and time again. Now that I had remasted her and overhauled her copper and painted her inside and out, the subject had bobbed up again; and as I couldn't make any objection, and as the moon for the first time in seven years had happened to be full at the same moment when the vessel happened to be free, Sasa informed me (in the autocratic manner of lovely woman dealing with an old sea horse) that the invitations were out, the music engaged, and that my part was to plank down fifty dollars, keep my mouth shut, and do what I was told.