little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.
Ain't it strange how innocent little creatures like
children like the blood-thirstiest stories?"

"Like my lad Davy at home," said Anne. "He wants
tales that reek with gore."

Captain Jim's tea proved to be nectar. He was pleased
as a child with Anne's compliments, but he affected a
fine indifference.

"The secret is I don't skimp the cream," he remarked
airily. Captain Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell
Holmes, but he evidently agreed with that writer's
dictum that "big heart never liked little cream pot."

"We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your
lane," said Gilbert as they sipped. "Who was he?"

Captain Jim grinned.

"That's Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest
one streak of foolishness in him. I s'pose you
wondered what his object was in turning himself into a
sort of dime museum freak."

"Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over
from olden times?" asked Anne.

"Neither of them. It's politics that's at the bottom