"Pshaw!" says Eleazer. "That's too bad!"

"You isn't no sorrier than me, b'y."

Eleazer tweaked his beard. "Dang it!" says he. "I wisht there _was_ room. I'm hungry for my supper."

"Let un in," says one of the lads. "'Tis even chances she'll float it out."

"Well," says Eleazer, "I doesn't want t' make no trouble----"

"Come aboard," says Tom. "An' make haste."

"If she makes bad weather," says Eleazer, "I'll get out."

They pushed off from the pan. 'Twas falling dusk, by this time. The wind blowed black. The frost begun to bite. Snow came thick--just as if, ecod, somebody up aloft was shaking the clouds, like bags, in the gale! And the rodney was deep and ticklish; had the ice not kept the water flat in the lanes and pools, either Eleazer would have had to get out, as he promised, or she would have swamped like a cup. As it was, handled like dynamite, she done well enough; and she might have made harbor within the hour had she not been hailed by Pinch-a-Penny Peter from a small pan of ice midway between.

And there the old codger was squatting, his old face pinched and woebegone, his bag o' bones wrapped up in his c.o.o.nskin coat, his pan near flush with the sea, with little black waves already beginning to wash over it.

A sad sight, believe me! Poor old Pinch-a-Penny, bound out to sea without hope on a wee pan of ice!

"Got any room for me?" says he.

They ranged alongside. "Mercy o' G.o.d!" says Tom; "she's too deep as it is."

"Ay," says Peter; "you isn't got room for no more. She'd sink if I put foot in her."

"Us'll come back," says Tom.

"No use, Tom," says Peter. "You knows that well enough. 'Tis no place out here for a Gingerbread punt. Afore you could get t' sh.o.r.e an' back night will be down an' this here gale will be a blizzard. You'd never be able t' find me."

"I 'low not," says Tom.

"Oh, no," says Peter. "No use, b'y."

"Damme, Skipper Peter," says Tom, "I'm sorry!"

"Ay," says Peter; "'tis a sad death for an ol' man--squattin' out here all alone on the ice an' shiverin' with the cold until he shakes his poor d.a.m.ned soul out."

"Not d.a.m.ned!" cries Tom. "Oh, don't say it!"

"Ah, well!" says Peter; "sittin' here all alone, I been thinkin'."

"'Tisn't by any man's wish that you're here, poor man!" says Tom.

"Oh, no," says Peter. "No blame t' n.o.body. My time's come. That's all.

But I wisht I had a seat in your rodney, Tom."

And then Tom chuckled.

"What you laughin' at?" says Peter.

"I got a comical idea," says Tom.

"Laughin' at me, Tom?"

"Oh, I'm jus' laughin'."

"'Tis neither time nor place, Tom," says Peter, "t' laugh at an old man."

Tom roared. Ay, he slapped his knee, and he throwed back his head, and he roared. 'Twas enough almost to swamp the boat.

"For shame!" says Peter. And more than Pinch-a-Penny thought so.

"Skipper Peter," says Tom, "you're rich, isn't you?"

"I got money," says Peter.

"Sittin' out here, all alone," says Tom, "you been thinkin' a deal, you says?"

"Well," says Peter, "I'll not deny that I been havin' a little spurt o' sober thought."

"You been thinkin' that money wasn't much, after all?"

"Ay."

"An' that all your money in a lump wouldn't buy you pa.s.sage ash.o.r.e?"

"Oh, some few small thoughts on that order," says Peter. "'Tis perfectly natural."

"Money talks," says Tom.

"Tauntin' me again, Tom?"

"No, I isn't," says Tom. "I means it. Money talks. What'll you give for my seat in the boat?"

"'Tis not for sale, Tom."

The lads begun to grumble. It seemed just as if Long Tom Lane was making game of an old man in trouble. 'Twas either that or lunacy. And there was no time for nonsense off the Gingerbread coast in a spring gale of wind.

"Hist!" Tom whispered to the lads. "I knows what I'm doin'."

"A mad thing, Tom!"

"Oh, no!" says Tom. "'Tis the cleverest thing ever I thought of.

Well," says he to Peter, "how much?"

"No man sells his life."

"Life or no life, my place in this boat is for sale," says Tom. "Money talks. Come, now. Speak up. Us can't linger here with night comin'