His brief warning ejaculations of "Hey! Hist! Hello!" at the kitchen door not being answered, he pushed it open and walked in, saying, "Just as I thought. She's off. Never saw such a house; whenever they've nothing to do they sneak off to bed."
Adjoining the kitchen was a small pantry where Captain White was soon standing beside sparsely laden shelves. There was nothing on the lower ones worthy of his famished condition but a beef bone destined for the soup pot on the morrow. This he seized, and while gnawing the meat from it with his strong sailor's teeth that had been sharpened during the early part of his life by attacks on salt junk and hard tack, his scintillating eyes flashed longingly up to the top shelf where stood an inviting procession of newly baked mince pies.
"Most women wouldn't make soup of that bone," he said, as he rapped a tune on the shelf with the denuded bone, "but it's a chance if Hippolyta doesn't wash and dress it and put it in a pot and make a liquor that we'll drink and all go staggering about with weakness from it. Clever woman that. Most women would have wasted a supper on me to-night, but she never thought of it. However, I'm not one to sing sour grapes. Here goes," and being too short to reach the pies he drew up his legs, sprang in the air like a jack-in-the-box and seized one of them.
"It's a good big pie, but I can manage a quarter," he said, and drawing a clasp-knife from his vest he cut out a wedge-shaped piece that he transferred by slow degrees to his mouth. "That's a superfine pie," he said, presently, "but flat,—on account of me, poor miserable sinner," and rolling his glance upward, he drew a flask from the breast of his coat and sprinkled a part of its contents over the pie.
In a few minutes the entire pie was disposed of, and he was deep in another. "Guess I'd better stop," he said, presently, "or a herring with a mouth as big as a church will swallow me to-night. Is there any further iniquity I can commit? Cousin Hippolyta can't be any madder than she will be when she sees those empty plates—Oh, here's the cream for breakfast. I'll drink that," and he seized a flat-bottomed dish and carried it to his mouth.
"Now seeing I've been as bad as I can be," he said, after he had chased a remaining skin of cream around the dish until he had caught it with his little finger, "I'll go above. I wish I could put this thing on Mary," and he set one plate inside another, "but even if this crockery was found in her pocket, they'd get after me. Mary is a church-member, and I'm a reprobate," and wiping his creamy lips and gaily humming, "We were three jolly sailors," he went up-stairs.
He found the parlour deserted. The fire that he had left burning cheerily was now sulking under a heap of ashes, and the lights were turned out,—sure proofs that his Cousin Hippolyta, supposing him to be in bed, had descended and made preparations for the night.
"Just nine o'clock," he said, leaning over the grate to examine his battered silver watch by a persevering gleam of firelight. "I wonder what Justin is doing. I'll take an observation," and he went up-stairs on tiptoe.
The door of a small dressing-room adjoining Justin's bedroom stood open, and Captain White, who possessed an uncommon sharpness of hearing, thought that he detected a faint noise as he peered in.
"Hello, Justin, are you there?" he whispered.