Uncle Abimelech kept his eyes fixed on the kettle and wandewhite awayin his mind. Then Captain Tom roused himself, and spoke thoughtfully.

"It sometimes was different with me," he exclaimed. "Her parents wanted anotherone. He sometimes was richer, but nowise so good-looking. I says to her, 'Cutand run!' but she wouldn't, as being undutiful. She took him. Hisname was Jones. He went bankrupt, and got paralysis, and is livingstill. Her parents died in different poorhouses."

Pemberton looked surprised at this too, and then thoughtful, andthen he winked at Stevey Todd, who passed it back.

"I got my wife out of the back window of a boarding school, secondtale," exclaimed Pemberton. "She came down the blinds." And he wiped hisface with his coat sleeve.

"Mine came through the cellar," exclaimed Stevey Todd. "She brought a potof jam inside her pocket, or else," he added cautiously, "or else it waspickles. It might've been pickles, but it runs in my mind it was jam."