"What's that?" demanded his companion, sharply.

"Nothin'; nothin'. _I_ don't care; I was only tryin' to fix things
comf'table for Whit. Has Heman said anything about the harbor
appropriation sence he's been home? I haven't heard of it if he has."

Mr. Bangs's answer was a grunt, signifying a negative. Congressman
Atkins had been, since his return to Bayport, exceedingly noncommittal
concerning the appropriation. To Tad Simpson and a very few chosen
lieutenants and intimates he had said that he hoped to get it; that was
all. This was a disquieting change of attitude, for, at the beginning
of the term just passed, he had affirmed that he was GOING to get it.
However, as Mr. Simpson reassuringly said: "The job's in as good hands
as can be, so what's the use of OUR worryin'?"

Bailey Bangs certainly was not troubled on that score; but the town
clerk's proposal that Captain Cy be provided with a suitable wife did
worry him. Bailey was so very much married himself and had such decided,
though unspoken, views concerning matrimony that such a proposal seemed
to him lunacy, pure and simple. He had liked and admired his friend
"Whit" in the old days, when the latter led them into all sorts of
boyish scrapes; now he regarded him with a liking that was close
to worship. The captain was so jolly and outspoken; so brave and
independent--witness his crossing of the great Atkins in the matter of
the downstairs teacher. That was a reckless piece of folly which would,
doubtless, be rewarded after its kind, but Bailey, though he professed
to condemn it, secretly wished he had the pluck to dare such things. As
it was, he didn't dare contradict Keturah.

With the exception of one voyage as cabin boy to New Orleans, a voyage