"The ship won't be ready for sea for weeks yet," said Captain Trimblett, dolefully. "She's going on a time-charter, and before she is taken over she has got to be thoroughly overhauled. As fast as they put one thing right something else is found to be wrong."

"Go to London and stay with your children for a bit, then," said Hartley. "Give out that you are only going for a day or two, and then don't turn up till the ship sails."

The captain's face brightened. "I believe Vyner would let me go," he replied. "I could go in a few days' time, at any rate. And, by the way-Joan!"

"Eh?" said Hartley.

"Write to your brother-in-law at Highgate, and send her there for a time," said the captain. "Write and ask him to invite her. Keep her and young Vyner apart before things go too far."

"I'll see how things go for a bit," said Hartley, slowly. "It's awkward to write and ask for an invitation. And where do your ideas of fate come in?". "They come in all the time," said the captain, with great seriousness. "Very likely my difficulty was made on purpose for us to think of a way of getting you out of yours. Or it might be Joan's fate to meet somebody in London at her uncle's and marry him. If she goes we might arrange to go up together, so that I could look after her."

"I'll think it over," said his friend, holding out his hand. "I must be going."

"I'll come a little way with you," said the captain, leading the way into the house. "I don't suppose Peter will be in yet, but he might; and I've had more of him lately than I want."

He took up his hat and, opening the door, followed Hartley out into the road. The evening was warm, and they walked slowly, the captain still discoursing on fate and citing various instances of its working which had come under his own observation. He mentioned, among others, the case of a mate of his who found a wife by losing a leg, the unfortunate seaman falling an easy victim to the nurse who attended him.

"He always put it down to the effects of the chloroform," concluded the captain; "but my opinion is, it was to be."

He paused at Hartley's gate, and was just indulging in the usual argument as to whether he should go indoors for a minute or not, when a man holding a handkerchief to his bleeding face appeared suddenly round the corner of the house and, making a wild dash for the gate, nearly overturned the owner.

"It looks like our milkman!" said Hartley, recovering his balance and gazing in astonishment after the swiftly retreating figure. "I wonder what was the matter with him?"

"He would soon know what was the matter with him if I got hold of him,"

said the wrathful captain.

Hartley opened the door with his key, and the captain, still muttering under his breath, pa.s.sed in. Rosa's voice, raised in expostulation, sounded loudly from the kitchen, and a man's voice, also raised, was heard in response.

"Sounds like my bo'sun," said the captain, staring as he pa.s.sed into the front room. "What's he doing here?"

Hartley shook his head.

"Seems to be making himself at home," said the captain, fidgeting. "He's as noisy as if he was in his own house."

"I don't suppose he knows you are here," said his friend, mildly.

Captain Trimblett still fidgeted. "Well, it's your house," he said at last. "If you don't mind that lanky son of a gun making free, I suppose it's no business of mine. If he made that noise aboard my ship-"

Red of face he marched to the window and stood looking out. Fortified by his presence, Hartley rang the bell.

"Is there anybody in the kitchen?" he inquired, as Rosa answered it. "I fancied I heard a man's voice."

"The milkman was here just now," said Rosa, and, eying him calmly, departed.

The captain swung round in wrathful amazement.

"By-," he spluttered; "I've seen-well-by-b-r-r-r--- Can I ring for that d--d bo'sun o' mine?

"Certainly," said Hartley.

The captain crossed to the fireplace and, seizing the bell-handle, gave a pull that made the kitchen resound with wild music. After a decent interval, apparently devoted to the allaying of masculine fears, Rosa appeared again.

"Did you ring, sir?" she inquired, gazing at her master.

"Send that bo'sun o' mine here at once!" said the captain, gruffly.

Rosa permitted herself a slight expression of surprise. "Bo'sun, sir?"

she asked, politely.

"Yes."

The girl affected to think. "Oh, you mean Mr. Walters?" she said, at last.

"Send him here," said the captain.

Rosa retired slowly, and shortly afterward something was heard brushing softly against the wall of the pa.s.sage. It ceased for a time, and just as the captain's patience was nearly at an end there was a sharp exclamation, and Mr. Walters burst suddenly into the room and looked threateningly over his shoulder at somebody in the pa.s.sage.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Captain Trimblett, loudly.

Mr. Walters eyed him uneasily, and with his cap firmly gripped in his left hand saluted him with the right. Then he turned his head sideways toward the pa.s.sage. The captain repeated his question in a voice, if anything, louder than before.

The strained appearance of Mr. Walters's countenance relaxed.

"Come here for my baccy-box, wot I left here the other day," he said, glibly, "when you sent me."

"What were you making that infernal row about, then?" demanded the captain.

Mr. Walters cast an appealing glance toward the pa.s.sage and listened acutely. "I was-grumbling because-I couldn't-find it," he said, with painstaking precision.

"Grumbling?" repeated the captain. "That ugly voice of yours was enough to bring the ceiling down. What was the matter with that man that burst out of the gate as we came in, eh?"

The boatswain's face took on a wooden expression.

"He-his nose was bleeding," he said, at last.

"I know that," said the captain, grimly; "but what made it bleed?"

For a moment Mr. Walters looked like a man who has been given a riddle too difficult for human solution. Then his face cleared again.

"He-he told me-he was object-subject to it," he stammered. "Been like it since he was a baby."

He shifted his weight to his other foot and shrugged eloquently the shoulder near the pa.s.sage.

"What did you do to him?" demanded the captain, in a low, stern voice.

"Me, sir?" said Mr. Walters, with clumsy surprise. "Me, sir? I-I-all I done-all I done-was ta put a door-key down his back."

"Door-key?" roared the captain.