“Well, 'tis,” declared the sacrifice indignantly. “They might git a dum-sight worse one.”
“I cal'late that's so, Jerry,” said Captain Eri. “Still, Perez ain't altogether wrong. Guess you'd better keep the dishwashin' out of it. I know dishwashin' would never git ME; I've got so I hate the sight of soap and hot water as bad as if I was a Portugee. Pass me that pen.”
Captain Perez gladly relinquished the writing materials, and Captain Eri, after two or three trials, by which he added to the paper decorations of the floor, produced the following:
“Wife Wanted--By an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits. Must be willing to Work and Keep House shipshape and aboveboard. No sea-lawyers need apply. Address--Skipper, care the Nuptial Chime, Boston, Mass.”
The line relating to sea-lawyers was insisted upon by Captain Jerry. “That'll shut out the tonguey kind,” he explained. The advertisement, with this addition, being duly approved, the required fifty cents was inclosed, as was a letter to the editor of the matrimonial journal requesting all answers to be forwarded to Captain Jeremiah Burgess, Orham, Mass. Then the envelope was directed and the stamp affixed.
“There,” said Captain Eri, “that's done. All you've got to do now, Jerry, is to pick out your wife and let us know what you want for a weddin' present. You're a lucky man.”
“Aw, let's talk about somethin' else,” said the lucky one rather gloomily. “What's the news up at the depot, Eri?”
They received the tidings of the coming of Hazeltine with the interest due to such an event. Captain Eri gave them a detailed account of his meeting with the new electrician, omitting, however, in consideration for the feelings of Captain Perez, to mention the fact that it was the Bartlett boy who started that gentleman upon his walk to the cable station.
“Well, what did you think of him?” asked Captain Perez, when the recital was finished.
“Seemed to me like a pretty good feller,” answered Captain Eri deliberately. “He didn't git mad at the joke the gang played on him, for one thing. He ain't so smooth-tongued as Parker used to be and he didn't treat Baxter and me as if Cape Codders was a kind of animals, the way some of the summer folks do. He had the sense not to offer to pay me for takin' him over to the station, and I liked that. Take it altogether, he seemed like a pretty decent chap--for a New Yorker,” he added, as an after thought.