And I do further
promise, if beaten, to discharge all scores below.'
"Now the date, please--and hand me the chalk."
She reached up and signed her name bold and free, being a fair
scholar. "And now, my little fellow," says she, turning to her
husband, "put down that pipe and come'st along home. The man's at
the top of the tree, is he? You'll wish you were, if I catch you at
any more tricks!"
Well, at first the mankind at the "Fish and Anchor" allowed that Sal
couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy;
and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she
was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until
four days later, at high-water, when the folks that happened to be
idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard,
and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright
as a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that had
lain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the
_Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to
be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new
strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old
ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the
sternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all the
world to see.
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