"'Oh, I don't know,' says I. 'You're safe there, and, even if the
yacht folks don't come hunting for you by and by--which I cal'late they
will--the tide'll be low enough in five hours or so, so's you can walk
ashore.'

"'What--what do you mean?' he says. 'Ain't you goin' to take me off?'

"'I was,' says I, 'but I've changed my plans. And, Mr. Allie
Vander-what's-your-name Davidson, there's other things--low-down, mean
things--planned for this night that ain't going to come off, either.
Understand that, do you?'

"He understood, I guess. He didn't answer at all. Only gurgled, like
he'd swallered something the wrong way.

"Then the beautiful tit for tat of the whole business come to me, and I
couldn't help rubbing it in a little. 'As a sartin acquaintance of mine
once said to me,' I says, 'you look a good deal handsomer up there than
you do in a boat.'

"'You--you--etcetery and so forth, continued in our next!' says he, or
words to that effect.

"'That's all right,' says I, putting on the power. 'You've got no kick
coming. I allow you to--er--ornament my weir-pole, and 'tain't every
dude I'd let do that.'

"And I went away and, as the Fifth Reader used to say, 'let him alone in
his glory.'