CAPTAIN JACK AND THE MUTINEERS.

The newspapers from town had been full of the accounts of a great strike in a manufacturing district of the city, and Tommie, after his father had finished reading them, had asked to be allowed to take the papers down to old Jack. Jack had once said to the boys that he never knew what was going on anywhere, because he was too poor to buy the daily newspapers, and had added:

"It's only when I have luck that I even get a Tribune a year old. Why," said he, "a small boy down here once brought me a New York Tribune that told all about the milishy being called out to stop a riot up in Buffalo, and it was a mighty exciting story, I can tell you. Next day a feller come down and hired my boat to go out a-bluefishin' with, and after we'd been out two or three hours I says to him, 'How's the riot at Buffalo this morning?' 'The what?' says he. 'The riot,' says I. 'Haven't you heard of the riot?' 'No,' says he. 'It's all in the paper,' says I, and I went into my cabin and brought out the paper. 'Oh! I see!' says he, with a laugh. 'That was two years ago.' And I looked at the date of that there Tribune, and shiver my timbers if the thing warn't dated two years before!"

This unhappy condition rather appealed to Tommie, and the result was that he got his father to promise that when he had read his morning paper he could have it to take down to the beach to old Jack, and Jack was very appreciative.

"It's very kind of you, Tommie," he said. "The news I get nowadays is at least young enough to be interesting, and I hope you'll never forgit that I'll never forgit your kindness. Take them strikers up in town, for instance. In the old way I'd never have heard anything about 'em for a month or two anyhow, but now I hear about 'em right off, and I sort of feel as if I was still living in the world, instead of being out of it, as I used to be."

"What do you think of the strike, Captain Jack?" asked Bobbie.

"What do I think of it?" echoed the Captain. "What could any sea-captain think of it—any self-respectin' sea-captain? It had ought to be stopped. That's what. That's just the trouble with being on land, though; you can't do things like you would on the water. 'F I was runnin' a big factory, I'd do it ship-shape, and I wouldn't stand any mutinies. I tell you what, now, my factory'd be a model. In the first place, I'd give the factory a name, just as if she was a ship, and the men who came there to work would be my crew, and the very minute one of 'em didn't behave himself, and tried to kick up a rumpus with me as their Captain, I'd clap him into irons. I believe in ironing them, I do; and it almost makes me wish I owned a factory, and the sailors in it would strike, so's I could show the world what I'd do under the circumstances.

"I'll never forget the last mutiny I had to deal with. It was back in '83. I was skipper of the clipper Benjamin Q., of Nantucket. We were engaged in carrying coal from Sandusky to Kennebunkport, and one morning two o' the crew up an' declined to shovel another ton.

"'Why not?' says I, calmly.

"'It's too dirty. We thought this was hard coal, and it's soft. It takes us an hour to get clean after the day's work's over, and that makes nine hours a day's work. We won't work more'n eight.'

"'I guess you're reasonable,' says I. 'Knock off, an' go in and take your bath. I'll turn the water on for ye myself. I'll let ye use my tub.'

"So they went aboard, and I went in and turned on the water in my tub, and I put about two pounds o' starch in the water. They all took turns, and said they felt better.

"'Now,' says I, 'you fellers can do this every day. Seven hours' work, and one hour for bathin', and I don't want anymore kickin'.' The mutineers agreed, and thought I was easy. Every day for a week they took starch baths—though they didn't know anything about the starch. I took care o' that. Well, you know what starch is. There they was a-soakin' it into their systems for an hour a day, and, by the flyin' Dutchman, when Sunday came around every one of 'em was so stiff they couldn't move. Monday they was like iron—couldn't move a joint. And then I says to 'em, says I, 'Kinder stiff, ain't ye? Little stiffer'n ye thought ye was goin' to be, eh? Thought ye was goin' to take the starch out of me, eh? Did too—if ye only knew it. Now ye can go about your business, and the next time ye take it into your heads to mutiny, choose another Captain to fool with.' I had 'em carried ashore and laid on the dock, and I sailed away. What ever became of 'em I don't know, but I heard that one of 'em had made a fortune as a ossified man in a Chicago museum."

With which astounding story of his method of dealing with strikers, Captain Jack rose up and walked away, leaving Bob and Tommie wondering if it really could have happened as the old tar had said.