to let you go. But I ain't going to give in to a mutiny right before the face and eyes of my own crew.”      

       Smut-nosed Dolph had arrived with the supper-dishes balanced in his arms while he crawled over the deckload. He was listening with the utmost interest.     

       “Your Aunt Zilpah has aided and abetted you in your flirting,” raged the captain. “My own sister, taking advantage of my being off to sea trying to earn money—”      

       “Do you mean to insult everybody in this world, father? I shall go home, I say. I'm miserable here.”      

       “I'll see to it that you ain't off gamboling and galley-westing with dudes!”      

       In spite of her spirit the girl was not able to bandy retort longer with this hard-shelled mariner, whose weapon among his kind for years had been a rude tongue. Shocked grief put an end to her poor little rebellion. Tears came.     

       “You are giving these two men a budget to carry home and spread about the village! Oh, father, you are wicked—wicked!” She put her hands to       her face, sobbed, and then ran away down into the gloomy cabin.     

       There was a long silence on the quarter-deck. Otie recovered his marlinespike and began to pound the eye-bolt.     

       “Without presuming, preaching, or poking into things that ain't none of my business, I want to say that I don't blame you one mite, cap'n,” he volunteered. “No matter what she says, she wasn't to be trusted among them dudes on shore, and I speak from observation and, being an old bach, I can speak impartial. The dudes on the water is just as bad. Them fellows were       flirting with her all the time they was 'longside. Real men that means decent ain't called on to keep whisking their caps off and on all the time a woman is in sight—and I see one of 'em wink at her.”      

       Captain Candage was in a mood to accept this comfort from Oakum Otie, and to put out of his contrite conscience the memory of what Captain Ranse Lougee had said.     

       “Don't you worry! I've got her now where I can keep my eye on her, and I'm cap'n of my own vessel—don't nobody ever forget that!” He shook his fist at the gaping cook. “What ye 

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