Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/288

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274
BEACHED KEELS

"Addy Oats," was the reply.

"Who's she?" asked several voices.

"Way them Dons says 'good-by,’" he explained. "And they go fricasseein' round with therr hats, so— Many the time I watched 'em doin' ut in Barrcelony."

"What's the French like?" another demanded.

"Quiddlety," pronounced the linguist.

"Oh, get out with ye," cried Mr. Laurel, plying an awl contemptuously. "’T ain't. I 've heard 'em myself, up at Troy's Pistols one summer. 'T ain't the least bit like ut."

"Captain Christy," appealed Mr. Gildersleeve with dignity, "ain't that how the Crapos ask ye what time o' day ut is? Come, now."

The captain roused slowly from another revery; his vision returned to present objects, and with absent-minded tolerance he replied: "Yes, that's right, so fur's I know, Bunty."

But his face seldom lighted nowadays; he soon withdrew into caverns of deep-eyed silence; and perhaps would neither speak nor stir again until the clangor of the noon bell startled the winter air and broke up their