With great solemnity the Cap'n drew on his pipe, and then gazed roguishly around upon his grinning audience.
"But I did go a-co'tin' once," he conceded with a sly wink. "'Twar when I come home after I'd been at sea 'bout five year. I run across one of the gals I'd knowed that knocked me down the companion way the fust time I laid a eye on her."
There was a look of startled surprise from the boys.
"I mean," Cap'n Buffum hastened to explain, with a twinkle in his eye, "I mean she drawed my heart out, lads. She was all cream and ripe peaches. 'Twarn't no gal that weared her clothes neater, an', in all my born days, I never seed finer mitts than she wore."
"What!" interrupted Legs. "The things ketchers wear?"
Cap'n Buffum laughed long and loudly. "Them was the gloves gals wore when I was young, gloves that didn't have no finger ends to 'em, so the womenfolks could show off their shiny rings and grab things good. In them days, they didn't have to take 'em off when they ate their
