"barge" moved off. Daniel, standing dejectedly in the door, remembered his manners.
"Hope you have a nice time," he shouted. Then he turned and moved disconsolately back to the desk. He might have expected it. It was thus in nine cases out of ten. The Emporium, Mr. J. Cohen, proprietor, was his undoing in this instance as in so many others. The Emporium got the trade and he got the good bys. Mr. Cohen was not an old resident, as he was; Mr. Cohen's daughter was not invited to picnics by the summer people; Mrs. Cohen was not head of the sewing circle and the Chapter of the Ladies of Honor, and prominent socially, as was Mrs. Dott; but Mr. Cohen bought cheap and sold cheap, and the Emporium flourished like a green bay tree, while the Metropolitan Store was rapidly going to seed. Daniel, looking out through the front window at the blue sea in the distance, thought of the past, of the days when, as commander and part owner of the three masted schooner Bluebird, he had been free and prosperous and happy. Then he considered the future, which was bluer than the sea, and sighed again. Why had he not been content to stick to the profession he understood, to remain on the salt water he loved; instead of retiring from the sea to live on dry land and squander his small fortune in a business for which he was entirely unfitted?
And yet the answer was simple enough. Mrs. Dott--Mrs. Serena Dott, his wife--was the answer, she and her social aspirations. It was Serena who had coaxed him into giving up seafaring; who had said that it was a shame for him to waste his life ordering foremast hands about when he might be one of the leading citizens in his native town. It was Serena who had persuaded him to invest the larger part of his savings in the Metropolitan Store. Serena, who had insisted that Gertrude, their daughter and only child, should leave home to attend the fashionable and expensive seminary near Boston. Serena who--but there! it was all Serena; and had been ever since they were married. Captain Daniel, on board his schooner, was a man whose word was law. On shore, he was law abiding, and his words were few.
The side door of the store--that leading to the yard separating it from the Dott homestead--opened, and Azuba Ginn appeared. Azuba had been the Dott maid of all work for eighteen years, ever since Gertrude was a baby. She was married, but her husband, Laban Ginn, was mate on a steam freighter running between New York and almost anywhere, and his shore leaves were short and infrequent. Theirs was a curious sort of married life. "We is kind of independent, Labe and me," said Azuba. "He often says to me--that is, as often as we're together, which ain't often--he says to me, he says, 'Live where you want to, Zuby,' he says, 'and if you want to move, move! When I get ashore I can hunt you up.' We don't write many letters because time each get t'other's, the news is so plaguey old 'tain't news at all. You Dotts seem more like home folks to me than anybody else, so I stick to you. I presume likely I shall till I die."
Azuba entered the store in the way in which she did most things, with a flurry and a slam. Her sleeves were rolled up, she wore an apron, and one hand dripped suds, demonstrating that it had just been taken from the dishpan. In the other, wiped more or less dry on the apron, she held a crumpled envelope.
"Well!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "If some human bein's don't beat the Dutch then _I_ don't know, that's all. If the way some folks go slip-slop, hit or miss, through this world ain't a caution then--Tut! tut! tut! don't talk to ME!"
Captain Dan looked up from the ledger.
"What?" he asked absently.
"I say, don't talk to ME!"
"We--ll," with deliberation, "I guess I shan't, unless you stop talkin' yourself, and give me a chance. What's the matter now, Zuba?"
"Matter! Don't talk to ME! Carelessness is the matter! Slip-sloppiness is the matter! Here's a man that calls himself a man and goes mopin' around pretendin' to BE a man, and what does he do?"
"I don't know. I'd tell you better, maybe, if I knew who he was."
"Who he was! I'll tell you who he was--is, I mean. He's Balaam Hambleton, that's who he is."
"Humph! Bale Hamilton, hey? Then it's easy enough to say what he does--nothin', most of the time. Is that letter for me?"
"Course it's for you! And it's a week old, what's more. One week ago that letter come in the mail and the postmaster let that--that Hambleton thing take it, 'cause he said he was goin' right by here and could leave it just as well as not. And this very mornin' that freckle-faced boy of his--that George Washin'ton one--what folks give such names to their young ones for _I_ can't see!--he rung the front door bell and yanked me right out of the dish water, and he says his ma found the letter in Balaam's other pants when she was mendin' 'em, and would I please excuse his forgettin' it 'cause he had so much on his mind lately. Mind! Land of love! if he had a thistle top on his mind 'twould smash it flat. Don't talk to me!"
"I won't," drily; "I WON'T, Zuba, I swear it. Let's see the letter."
He bent forward and took the letter from her hand. Then, adjusting his spectacles, he examined the envelope. It was of the ordinary business size and was stamped with the Boston postmark, and a date a week old. Captain Dan looked at the postmark, studied the address, which was in an unfamiliar handwriting, and then turned the envelope over. On the flap was printed "Shepley and Farwell, Attorneys, ----- Devonshire Street." The captain drew a long breath; he leaned back in his chair and sat staring at the envelope.
Azuba wiped the suds from her wet hand and arm upon her apron. Then she wrapped it and the other arm in said apron and coughed. The cough was intended to arouse her employer from the trance into which he had, apparently, fallen. But it was without effect. Captain Daniel did stop staring at the envelope, but he merely transferred his gaze to the ink-spattered blotter and the ledger upon it, and stared at them.
"Well?" observed Azuba.
The captain started. "Hey?" he exclaimed, looking up. "Did you speak?"
"I said 'Well?'. I suppose that's speakin'?"
"'Well?' Well what?"
"Oh, nothin'! I was just wonderin'--"
"Wonderin' what?"
"I was wonderin' if that letter was anything important. Ain't you goin' to open it and see?"
"Hey? Open it? Oh, yes, yes. Well, I shouldn't wonder if I opened it some time or other, Zuba. I gen'rally open my letters. It's a funny habit I have."
"Humph! Well, all right, then. I didn't know. Course, 'tain't none of my business what's in other folks's letters. _I_ ain't nosey, land knows. Nobody can accuse me of--"
"Nobody can accuse you of anything, Zuba. Not even dish washin' just now."
Azuba drew herself up. Outraged dignity and injured pride were expressed in every line of her figure. "Well!" she exclaimed; "WELL! if that ain't--if that don't beat all that ever _I_ heard! Here I leave my work to do folks favors, to fetch and carry for 'em, and this is what I get. Cap'n Dott, I want you to understand that I ain't dependent on nobody for a job. I don't HAVE to slave myself to death for nobody. If you ain't satisfied--"
"There, there, Zuba! I was only jokin'. Don't get mad!"
"Mad! Who's mad, I'd like to know? It takes more'n that to make me mad, I'd have you understand."
"That's good; I'm glad of it. Well, I'm much obliged to you for bringin' the letter."
"You're welcome. Land sakes! I don't mind doin' errands, only I like to have 'em appreciated. And I like jokes well as anybody, but when you tell me--"
"Hold on! don't get het up again. Keep cool, Zuba, keep cool! Think of that dish water; it's gettin' cooler every minute."
The answer to this was an indignant snort followed by the bang of the door. Azuba had gone. Captain Daniel looked after her, smiled faintly, shook his head, and again turned his attention to the letter in his hand. He did not open it immediately. Instead he sat regarding it with the same haggard, hopeless expression which he had worn when he first read the firm's