couldn't make head nor tail of the business, and set there comparing the
envelopes, and wondering who on earth had sent 'em. Pretty soon "Ily"
Tucker heads over towards our moorings, and says he:

"What's troubling the ancient mariners?" he says.

"Barzilla and me's got a couple of letters," says Cap'n Jonadab; "and we
was wondering who they was from."

Tucker leaned away down--he's always suffering from a rush of funniness
to the face--and he whispers, awful solemn: "For heaven's sake, whatever
you do, don't open 'em. You might find out." Then he threw off his
main-hatch and "haw-hawed" like a loon.

To tell you the truth, we hadn't thought of opening 'em--not yet--so
that was kind of one on us, as you might say. But Jonadab ain't so slow
but he can catch up with a hearse if the horses stop to drink, and he
comes back quick.

"Ily," he says, looking troubled, "you ought to sew reef-points on your
mouth. 'Tain't safe to open the whole of it on a windy night like this.
First thing you know you'll carry away the top of your head."

Well, we felt consider'ble better after that--having held our own on
the tack, so to speak--and we walked out of the post-office and up to my
room in the Travellers' Rest, where we could be alone. Then we opened up
the envelopes, both at the same time. Inside of each of 'em was another
envelope, slick and smooth as a mack'rel's back, and inside of THAT was
a letter, printed, but looking like the kind of writing that used to
be in the copybook at school. It said that Ebenezer Dillaway begged the