Vesty of the Basins

by Sarah Pratt McLean Greene

I observed how Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray now and then warily conveyed a "doughnut" from the table to their pockets, with an air of dark declension from the moral laws. Having filled their own receptacles, they whispered me an entreaty to do the same, as we might be late with the tide and hungry on our way home. I complied in this, as in every case, gallantly; but in my very first essay was detected by the proprietor with a large edible of this description half-way to my trousers' pocket. He winked unconsciously and obligingly turned his back. Captain Pharo, however, oblivious to sense of guilt, approved my action in clear words: "Tuck in the cheese too, major," said he; "it'll do for the mouse-trap."

I was equally unfortunate when, some time after, in settling for our dinner I drew out first, instead of my purse, the very same fried cake which had formerly betrayed me; and, to add to my discomfiture, Miss Pray and Mrs. Kobbe, who had six of these stolen products each in their capacious pockets, retired into a corner, innocently giggling.

But an unexpected formidable dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and I'm a-goin'."

"Not till we've been to a tobacconist's," said I, "anyway."

I purchased a quantity of smoking tobacco. With this parcel peeping enticingly from my pocket, and with persuasive argument that I could never again leave the Basin without his likeness, as aid to Mrs. Kobbe's tears, we at last seduced him up the stairs of the studio to the long-anticipated ordeal.

Now if young Mrs. Kobbe had had the discretion to keep silence! But "I wish, pa," said she, made bodeful by the agonized and even villanous aspect of the captain's usually stoical features, "'t you could look just as you did when major said he was goin' to take us up to dinner!"

"Good Lord! woman, how can I tell how I looked then? I didn't see myself, did I?"

"You looked so—so happy!" moaned Mrs. Kobbe, "and your face was all break—breaking out into a smile, and you didn't have that suf—sufferin' kinder look 't you've got now."

"I think, myself, sir," said the bland photographer—"ah! let me arrange your hair a little, just this side—or this?—which side?—ah! so—that a little less severe expression—we all have our trials, I know, but——"

"I hain't!" said the captain ferociously. "I hain't got a darn thing t' worry me. 'F my woman wants me ter have to git a boat an' row out for the 'Lizy Rodgers' on high tide, an' not git home till sun-up, I don't care. What ye screwin' my head into—hey?"