ridic'lous for Kenney to make such a big noise over such a little thing.
This where we get off?"

The dining room was a large and ornate apartment. Captain Elisha, when
he first entered it, seemed about to ask another question, but choked
it off and remained silent. Sylvester chose a table in a retired corner,
and they sat down.

"Now, Captain Warren," said the host, "what will you eat?"

Captain Elisha shook his head.

"You do the orderin'," he replied dryly; "I'll just set and be thankful,
like the hen that found the china doorknob. Anything that suits you will
do me, I guess."

The lawyer, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his companion, gave
his orders, and the waiter brought first a bit of caviar on toast. If
Sylvester expected this delicacy to produce astonished comments, he was
disappointed.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Captain Elisha. "I declare, you take me back a
long ways, Mr. Sylvester. Caviar! Well, well! Why, I haven't ate this
since I used to go to Cronstadt. At the American consul's house there we
had it often enough. Has a kind of homey taste even yet. That consul was
a good feller. He and I were great friends.

"I met him a long spell after that, when I was down in Mexico," he
went on. "He'd made money and was down on a vacation. My ship was at
Acapulco, and he and I used to go gunnin' together, after wild geese