CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND OBLONG BOX When Cleggett returned to the ship he found Captain Abernethy in conversation with a young man of deprecating manner whom the Captain introduced as the Rev.Simeon Calthrop.
"I been tellin' him," said the Cap'n, pitching his voice shrilly above the din the workmen made, and not giving the Rev.Mr.Calthrop an opportunity to speak for himself, "I been tellin' him it may be a long time before the Jasper B.gets to the Holy Land." "Do you want to go to Palestine ?" asked Cleggett of Mr.Calthrop, who stood with downcast eyes and fingers that worked nervously at the lapels of his rusty black coat.
"I've knowed him sence he was a boy.

He's in disgrace, Simeon Calthrop is," shrieked the Captain, preventing the preacher from answering Cleggett's question, and scorning to answer it directly himself.

"Been kicked out of his church fur kissin' a married woman, and can't get another one." (The Cap'n meant another church.) The preacher merely raised his eyes, which were large and brown and slightly protuberant, and murmured with a kind of brave humility: "It is true." "But why do you want to go to Palestine ?" said Cleggett.
"She sung in the choir and she had three children," screamed Cap'n Abernethy, "and she limped some.

Folks say she had a cork foot.

Hey, Simeon, DID she have a cork foot ?" Mr.Calthrop flushed painfully, but he forced himself courageously to answer.