HOW CAPTAIN JACK GOT HIS TITLE.

"Captain Jack," said Tommie, as he and Bobbie drew near to the Old Sailor at the sea-shore, shortly after their arrival, "you've told us a great many stories, but you never told us how you came to be a Captain. Was it for bravery in battle?"'

"No, my lad," replied the old Captain. "I've been brave enough in battle to be an Admiral, but I never got no promotion for it. It was indoorance won my title for me."

"Endurance?" said Bobbie. "That's as good as bravery, isn't it?"

"Better," said Captain Jack. "A great deal better. A great many brave people give out when they oughtn't to, but indoorin' people never gives out."

"Nor in, neither," said Tommie, "I guess."

"I guess likewise," said Captain Jack. "It wuz this way: In eighteen seventy-one—no, I guess it was eighteen seventy-three—no—waal I never—when was it?"

"Make it 1874," said Bobbie. "Three and one make four."

"That's when it was," said Captain Jack. "In eighteen seventy-four I shipped as a able-bodied seaman before the mast with Captain William Bilkes, of East Gloucester, Massachusetts, of the brig Peter J., of Nantucket. The Peter J. was a pretty good boat. They called her a brig, but she wasn't nothin' in particular, as far as I could see. She was a composite boat—like them fortygrafts. The owners of her bought her stern in New York, an' fastened it onto the bow of a wrack they'd purchased in a junk-shop at Plymouth. The rudder wuz a relict of a defunct Spanish man-o'-war, an' the masts wuz bought at a bargain sale o' ship stuffs at Phillydelphy. Whar the cabin come from I dun'no', but it was amatoor from way back.

"When I fust seed the ship I says, No, I don't want none o' her in mine. I'm fond o' swimmin', but I wants it as a diwersion an' not fer bizness. But Cap'n Bilkes he says to me, says he: 'Jack you're the best sailor afloat, an' I needs yer. Come with me, an' I'll give yer two thousand dollars a month!'

"'Cap'n,' says I, 'that ain't what I gen'rally gets, but to oblige ye I'll come at them figgers;' an' I went, not askin' at all where we was a-goin' to go to.

"Waal, we sets out, me before the mast with the others, an' the Cap'n an' two mates, four midshipmen, three soupycargoes, an' others behind the mast.

"First day out, down comes the Cap'n with the mumps. Dies. Chucked overboard.

"Second day out, down comes the two mates with measles. Dies. Buried at sea.

"Third day out, down comes the soupycargoes with whoopin'-cough. Dies. All's over.

"Fourth day out, down comes the hull crew, except me, with shycumotis, due to havin' eat too much tomatoes. Dies. Nothin' left aboard but me with the Mary Jones—"

"Peter J.," said Bobbie.

"The Peter J.," observed Captain Jack. "Git 'em mixed sometimes; they's so many boats, I 'ain't more trouble to— There was me all alone by myself aboard the Henry Q. to bring her into port, loaded as she was with olives an' fried potaters.

"It was a tarrable responsibility, but I took it on. So, my boys, there bein' no soupycargoes, nor no mates, nor no cap'ns, nor no nothin' save me an' the decks onto the ship, I 'p'inted myself commander-in-chief, an' thar ye be."

"It's very interesting," said Tommie.

"You bet it is!" said Captain Jack; "but it ain't half so interesting to me as a box o' imported cigars would be."

And the boys walked off, and later on Captain Jack received a box of imported cigars—"just," as Tommie said, "to interest him."