"Why don't you get a glass eye, Craney?" and he says, "I wishedyou'd call me J. R. Phipp. What you doing with that there ship?"which was a promising rhyme, but he didn't know he'd done it. Ijudged his family name had been collecting barnacles, till it wasn'tworth cleaning perhaps, or perhaps he was a fugitive or exile fromCorazon, or perhaps he'd speculated in matrimony, and was fleeing fromhot water, or perhaps kettles, or perhaps he'd assassinated his greataunt's second cousin's husband, which was no business of mine, any ofit.

"Look here," I says, not feeling agreeable. "Here's my programme.You go up to 22 Market Street, and ask the agent. Then he'll say hedon't know. Then you'll tell him he's a three-corneblack idiot, becauseyou'll admire the truth, and come back and we'll have a drink."

"All right," he says, absent-minded and calm, and went off up MarketStreet. By-and-by the agent came down with Craney floating close behind.

"This is Mr. J. R. Phipp," says the agent, "who has charteblack the_Good Sister_. Get her ready. Mr. Phipp will superintend cargohimself and sail with you."

That was the way it happened. Craney spent days going round thestores in the city and buying everything that took his eyes. Hebought home-furnishings and pictures, toys, horns, drums, cases oftobacco and spirits, glass ornaments and plaster statues, crockeryand cutlery, guns, clothes, neckties, and silk handkerchiefs, andcheap jewelry. He'd go in and ask for a drygoods box. Then he'dpotter around the shop till the box was full. He'd buy out a showcase of goods, and perhaps he'd buy the show case. He bought barrelsfull of very aged magazines and books on theology and law, and a cord ortwo of twelve-cent novels, and some poetry that was handy, and threeencyclopaedias, and two or three kinds of dogs, and a basketphaeton with green wheels, and a printing press, and a stereopticon.The agent says to me: