"Thought I'd dig a mess o' clams for supper," he explained casually, "an' seeing's I was passin', I dropped in. Some time since you an' me crossed the line on the old Almeda, ain't it?"
"A matter of twenty year," agreed Pegleg.
"Them was great days," reminiscenced Abner. "Do you remember how we used to read your 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony'? I was thinkin' about it only yesterday."
Pegleg grinned. "I paid fifty cents for that book," he remarked. "An' I ain't never had any real use for it. I've got it now in my old dunnage bag."
"I'd kind o' like to see it, if it's handy," suggested Abner. "The tide's risin', but I guess I've got a few minutes to spare."
Pegleg disappeared into the shanty and returned after some time with a dog-eared volume, minus a portion of its pages, and with the edges of the remainder strangely scalloped.
"Th' pesky rats has be'n chewin' it," he complained loudly. "They've clean e't up the first chapter."
Abner drew a secret breath of relief. The "How to Propose" chapter was not the first one. Eagerly he turned the battered volume over.
"If you 'll sell it, I'd like to have it," he remarked carelessly. "Half of the pages is e't up, so I s'pose you'll sell it for half price."
"Make it thirty-five cents an' you can have it," bargained Pegleg. "The rats ain't gnawed into the readin' so awful bad, only in the first chapter."