"You see our house?" he said. "Yes; well, you see the dinin'-room door.
Notice that chair by the side of it?"

"Yes, what of it?"

"Well, that's the rocker that Elsie made the velvet cushion for. I want
you to look at the upper southeast corner of that cushion, and see if
there ain't a cat's hair there. Lorenzo's possessed to sleep in that
chair, and--"

"Oh, you git out!" indignantly exclaimed Captain Perez, straightening
up.

"Well, it was a pretty important thing, and I wanted to make sure. I
left that chair out there, and I knew what I'd catch if any cat's hairs
got on that cushion while I was gone. Ain't that so, Mrs. Snow?"

The housekeeper expressed her opinion that Captain Eri was a "case,"
whatever that may be.

They had clam chowder for dinner--a New England clam chowder, made with
milk and crackers, and clams with shells as white as snow. They were
what the New Yorker calls "soft-shell" clams, for a Fulton Market
chowder is a "quahaug soup" to the native of the Cape.

Now that chowder was good; everybody said so, and if the proof of the
chowder, like that of the pudding, is in the eating of it, this one had
a clear case. Also, there were boiled striped bass, which is good enough
for anybody, hot biscuits, pumpkin pie, and beach-plum preserves. There