Now, you tell your ladies about this, and I'll have my sloop cleaned up a bit, and as soon as I can get my water on board I'm ready to hoist anchor." "But look you, sir," exclaimed Mr.Delaplaine, "this is a very important matter, and cannot be decided so quickly." "Oh, don't mention it, don't mention it," said Captain Ichabod; "just you tell your ladies all about it, and I'll be ready to sail almost any time to-morrow." "But, sir--" cried the merchant.
"Very good," said the pirate captain, "you talk it over.

I'm going to the town now and I'll row out to you this afternoon and get your instructions." And with this he got over the side.
Mr.Delaplaine said nothing of this visit, but waited on deck until the captain came on board, and then many were the questions he asked about the pirate Ichabod.
"Well, well!" the captain exclaimed, "that's just like him; he's a rare one.

Ichabod is not his name, of course, and I'm told he belongs to a good English family--a younger son, and having taken his inheritance, he invested it in a sloop and turned pirate.

He has had some pretty good fortune, I hear, in that line, but it hasn't profited him much, for he is a terrible gambler, and all that he makes by his prizes he loses at cards, so he is nearly always poor.

Blackbeard sometimes helps him, so I have heard--which he ought to do, for the old pirate has won bags of money from him--but he is known as a good fellow, and to be trusted.