Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail this coast in the dark, an' though—though you did act queer a little while ago, I don't—don't like to have you call yourself a da—darn fool."
Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair.
Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began to do.
Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as sighting something on the waves.
"Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing bird-like on the waters.
We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched the mast with painful diligence.
A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life.
As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel and delight by the loafers on the wharf.
"What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands.
"Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward; "they're Orientiles!"