"Have you any idea how much there is here?" he asked.

"No, I don't know's I have. There's been quite consider'ble comin'
in last fortni't or so. Summer folks been payin' bills and one
thing or 'nother. Might be forty or fifty dollars, I presume
likely."

"Forty or fifty! Nearer a hundred and fifty! And you keep it
stuffed around in every junk hole from the roof to the cellar.
Wonder to me you don't light your pipe with it. I shouldn't wonder
if you did. How many times have I told you to deposit your money
every three days anyhow? How many times?"

Mr. Winslow seemed to reflect.

"Don't know, Sam," he admitted. "Good many, I will give in. But--
but, you see, Sam, if--if I take it to the bank I'm liable to
forget I've got it. Long's it's round here somewheres I--why, I
know where 'tis and--and it's handy. See, don't you?"

The captain shook his head.

"Jed Winslow," he declared, "as I said to you just now you beat all
my goin' to sea. I can't make you out. When I see how you act
with money and business, and how you let folks take advantage of
you, then I think you're a plain dum fool. And yet when you bob up
and do somethin' like gettin' Leander Babbitt to volunteer and
gettin' me out of that row with his father, then--well, then, I'm
ready to swear you're as wise as King Solomon ever was. You're a