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“Well, I’ll be —-” he begun, and then stopped. “What in the —-” he commenced again, and again his breath died out. Fin’lly he says: “Is this you, or had I better quit and try another pipe?”

We told him ’twas us, and it seemed to me that he wa’n’t nigh so tickled as he’d ought to have been. When he found we’d come to the wedding, ‘count of Ebenezer sending us word, he didn’t say nothing for a minute or so.

“Of course, we HAD to come,” says Jonadab. “We felt ‘twouldn’t be right to disapp’int Mr. Dillaway.”

Peter kind of twisted his mouth. “That’s so,” he says. “It’ll be worth more’n a box of diamonds to him. Do him more good than joining a ‘don’t worry club.’ Well, come on up to the house and ease his mind.”

So we done it, and Ebenezer acted even more surprised than Peter.

I can’t tell you anything about that house, nor the fixings in it; it beat me a mile–that house did. We had a room somewheres up on the hurricane deck, with brass bunks and plush carpets and crocheted curtains and electric lights. I swan there was looking glasses in every corner–big ones, man’s size. I remember Cap’n Jonadab hollering to me that night when he was getting ready to turn in:

“For the land’s sake, Barzilla!” says he, “turn out them lights, will you? I ain’t over’n’ above bashful, but them looking glasses make me feel’s if I was undressing along with all hands and the cook.”

The house was full of comp’ny, and more kept coming all the time. Swells! don’t talk! We felt ’bout as much at home as a cow in a dory, but we was there ’cause Ebenezer had asked us to be there, so we kept on the course and didn’t signal for help. Travelling through the rooms down stairs where the folks was, was a good deal like dodging icebergs up on the Banks, but one or two noticed us enough to dip the colors, and one was real sociable. He was a kind of slow-spoken city-feller, dressed as if his clothes was poured over him hot and then left to cool. His last name had a splice in the middle of it–’twas Catesby-Stuart. Everybody–that is, most everybody–called him “Phil.”

Well, sir, Phil cottoned to Jonadab and me right away. He’d get us, one on each wing, and go through that house asking questions. He pumped me and Jonadab dry about how we come to be there, and told us more yarns than a few ’bout Dillaway, and how rich he was. I remember he said that he only wished he had the keys to the cellar so he could show us the money-bins. Said Ebenezer was so just–well, rotten with money, as you might say, that he kept it in bins down cellar, same as poor folks kept coal–gold in one bin, silver half-dollars in another, quarters in another, and so on. When he needed any, he’d say to a servant: “James, fetch me up a hod of change.” This was only one of the fish yarns he told. They sounded kind of scaly to Jonadab and me, but if we hinted at such a thing, he’d pull himself together and say: “Fact, I assure you,” in a way to freeze your vitals. He seemed like such a good feller that we didn’t mind his telling a few big ones; we’d known good fellers afore that liked to lie–gunners and such like, they were mostly.

Somehow or ‘nother Phil got Cap’n Jonadab talking “boat,” and when Jonadab talks “boat” there ain’t no stopping him. He’s the smartest feller in a cat-boat that ever handled a tiller, and he’s won more races than any man on the Cape, I cal’late. Phil asked him and me if we’d ever sailed on an ice-boat, and, when we said we hadn’t he asks if we won’t take a sail with him on the river next morning. We didn’t want to put him to so much trouble on our account, but he said: “Not at all. Pleasure’ll be all mine, I assure you.” Well, ’twas his for a spell–but never mind that now.