302 BEACH GRASS 



plank. I says 'Good mornin' Capt'n Green,' civil 

 as you please, but he didn't seem to remember me. 

 I says 'You don't recolec me, Capt'n Green, but 

 may be you will after I have refreshed your 

 memory a little.' 'Go ahead,' says he, 'I don't 

 like to talk of private affairs in public,' I says. 

 So he takes me aft to his cabin and gives me a 

 strong cigar and poured out some whisky, but 

 I was not drinkin' any of that stuff. I looked 

 him in the eye and says 'You don't remember 

 me,' I says. I was a grown man then and only 

 a shaver before so of course it was natr'l he 

 shouldn't know me. 'I don't know you from the 

 devil,' says he, speaking kinder peeved. 'Well,' 

 says I, 'perhaps you can recall a night on the 

 Cornelia when you held a boy by the slack of 

 his trousers over the rail — you didn't drop him 

 and I'm that boy.' He was struck all of a heap 

 and began to talk about his family and five daugh- 

 ters and how much depended on him. 'Well,' I 

 says, 'I haven't told nobody and don't believe I 

 will but I wondered whether you had forgit me,' 

 and I said good day and cleared out sudden. 

 "That fellow died a few years ago and a New 



