"Why?"

"I dunno. . . . He's a good man, for one thing. You haven't noticed any difference in him?"

"Since when?" The question obviously took Mrs Bowldler by surprise.

"Since he heard--yesterday--"

"Me bein' single-handed, with Palmerston on his back, so to speak, I hev' not taken particular observation," said Mrs Bowldler. "Last night, as I removed the cloth after supper, he pa.s.sed the remark that it had been a very tirin' day, that this was sad news about Mr Rogers, but we'd hope for the best, and when I mentioned scrambled eggs for breakfast, he left it to me. Captain Hunken on the other hand chose haddock: he did mention--come to think of it and when I happened to say that a second stroke was mostly fatal--he did go so far as to say that all flesh was gra.s.s and that Palmerston would require feedin' up after what he'd gone through."

"He--Cap'n Hunken--didn' seem worried in mind, either?"

"Nothing to notice. Of course," added Mrs Bowldler, "you understand that our appet.i.tes are not what they were: that there has been a distink droppin' off since--you know what. They both eats, in a fashion, but where's the pleasure in pleasin' 'em? Heart-renderin', I call it, when a devilled kidney might be a plain boiled cabbage for all the heed taken, and you knowin' all the while that a woman's at the bottom of it."

Fancy moved to the door. "Well," said she, "I'm sorry for the cause of it: but duty's duty, and I reckon I've news to make 'em sit up."

She went downstairs resolutely and knocked at Cai's parlour door.

"Come in! . . . Eh, so it's you, missy? No worse news of the invalid, I hope?"

"He isn' goin' to die to-day, nor yet to-morrow, if that's what you mean. May I take a chair?"

"Why, to be sure."

"Thank you." Fancy seated herself. "If you please, Cap'n Hocken, I got a very funny question to ask."

"Well?"

"You mustn't think I'm inquisitive--"

"Go on."

"If you please, Cap'n Hocken, are you very fond indeed of Mrs Bosenna?"

Cai turned about to the hearth and stooped for the tongs, as if to place a lump of coal on the fire. Then he seemed to realise that, the season being early summer, there was no fire and the tongs and coal-scuttle had been removed. He straightened himself up slowly and faced about again, very red and confused (but the flush may have come from his stooping).

"So we're not inquisitive, aren't we? Well, missy, appearances are deceptive sometimes--that's all I say."

"But I'm not askin' out o' curiosity--really an' truly. And please don't turn me out an' warn me to mind my own business; for it _is_ my business, in a way. . . . I'll explain it all, later on, if only you'll tell."

"I admire Mrs Bosenna very much indeed," said Cai slowly. "There now,-- will that satisfy you?"

Fancy shook her head. "Not quite," she confessed, "I want to know, Are you so fond of her that you wouldn' give her up, not on any account?"

Cai flushed again. "Well, missy, since you put it that way, we'll make it so."

Still the answer did not appear to satisfy the child. She fidgetted in her chair a little, but without offering to go.

"Not for no one in the wide world?" she asked at length.

"Why, see here,"--Cai met her gaze shyly--"isn't that the right way to feel when you want to make a woman your wife?"

"Ye-es--I suppose so," admitted Fancy with a sigh. "But it makes things so awkward--" She paused and knit her brows, as one considering a hard problem.

"What's awkward?"

Her response to this, delayed for a few seconds, was evasive when it came.

"I used to think you an' Cap'n Hunken was such friends there was nothin'

in the world you wouldn' do for him."

"Ah!" Cai glanced at her with sharp suspicion. "So that's the latest game, is it? He's been gettin' at you--a mere child like you!--and sends you off here to work on my feelin's! . . . I thought better of 'Bias: upon my soul, I did."

"An' you'd better go on thinkin' better," retorted Fancy with spirit.

"Cap'n Hunken sent me? What next? . . . Why, he never spoke a word to me!"

"Then I don't see--"

"Why I'm here? No, you don't; but you needn't take up with guesses o'

_that_ sort."

"I'm sorry if I mistook ye, missy."

"You ought to be. Mistook me?--O' course you did. And as for Cap'n Hunken's sendin' me, he don't even know yet that he's lost his money: and if he did he'd be too proud, as you ought to know."

"Lost his money?" echoed Cai. "What money?"

"Well, to start with, you don't suppose Mr Rogers got his stroke for nothin'? 'Twas the news about the _Saltypool_ that bowled him out: an'

between you an' me, in a few days there's goin' to be a dreadful mess.

He always was a speckilator. The more money he made--and he made a lot, back-along--the more he'd risk it: and the last year or two his luck has been cruel. In the end, as he had to tell me--for I did all his writin', except when he employed Peter Benny,--he rode to one anchor, and that was the _Saltypool_. He ran her uninsured."

"Uninsured?" Cai gave a low whistle. "But all the same," said he, "an' sorry as I am for Rogers, I don't see how that affects--"

"I'm a-breakin' it gently," said Fancy, not without a small air of importance. "Cap'n Hunken had a small sum in the _Saltypool_--a hundred pounds only."

"I wonder he had a penny. 'Tisn't like 'Bias to put anything into an uninsured ship."

"Mr Rogers did it without consultin' him. Cap'n Hunken didn' know, and _I_ didn' know, for the money didn' pa.s.s by cheque. Some time back in last autumn--I've forgot the date, but the books'll tell it--the old man handed me two hundred pound in notes, not tellin' me where they came from, with orders to pay it into his account: which I took it straight across to the bank--"

"Belay there a moment," interrupted Cai. "A moment since you mentioned _one_ hundred."

"So I did, because we're talkin' of Cap'n Hunken. Two hundred there were, and all in bank notes: but only one hundred belonged to _him_--and I only found _that_ out the other day, when he heard that Mr Rogers had put it into the _Saltypool_, and there was a row. As for the other-- Lawks, you don't tell me 'twas yours!" exclaimed Fancy, catching at the sudden surmise written on Cai's face.

"Why not? . . . If he treated 'Bias that way? Sure enough," said Cai.

"I took him a hundred pounds to invest for me, about that time."

"Did he pay you a dividend this last half-year?"

"To be sure--seven pound, eight-an'-four."