"To-to stop the bleeding, sir," said Mr. Walters, looking at the floor and nervously twisting his cap in his hands. "It's a old-fashioned-"

"That'll do," exclaimed the captain, in a choking voice, "that'll do. I don't want any more of your lies. How dare you come to Mr. Hartley's house and knock his milkman about, eh? How dare you? What do you mean by it?"

Mr. Walters fumbled with his cap again. "I was sitting in the kitchen,"

he said at last, "sitting in the kitchen-hunting 'igh and low for my baccy-box-when this 'ere miserable, insulting chap shoves his head in at the door and calls the young lady names."

"Names?" said the captain, frowning, and waving an interruption from Hartley aside. "What names?"

Mr. Walters hesitated again, and his brow grew almost as black as the captain's.

"'Rosy-lips,'" he said, at last; "and I give 'im such a wipe acrost-"

"Out you go," cried the wrathful captain. "Out you go, and if I hear your pretty little voice in this house again you'll remember it, I can tell you. D'ye hear? Scoot!"

Mr. Walters said "Thank you," and, retiring with an air of great deference, closed the door softly behind him.

"There's another of them," said Captain Trimblett subsiding into a chair. "And from little things I had heard here and there I thought he regarded women as poison. Fate again, I suppose; he was made to regard them as poison all these years for the sake of being caught by that tow-headed wench in your kitchen."

CHAPTER XII

BY no means insensible to the difficulties in the way, Joan Hartley had given no encouragement to Mr. Robert Vyner to follow up the advantage afforded him by her admission at the breakfast-table. Her father's uneasiness, coupled with the broad hints which Captain Trimblett mistook for tactfulness, only confirmed her in her resolution; and Mr. Vyner, in his calmer moments, had to admit to himself that she was right-for the present, at any rate. Meantime, they were both young, and, with the confidence of youth, he looked forward to a future in which his father's well-known views on social distinctions and fitting matrimonial alliances should have undergone a complete change. As to his mother, she merely seconded his father's opinions, and, with admiration born of love and her marriage vows, filed them for reference in a memory which had on more than one occasion been a source of great embarra.s.sment to a man who had not lived for over fifty years without changing some of them.

Deeply conscious of his own moderation, it was, therefore, with a sense of annoyance that Mr. Robert Vyner discovered that Captain Trimblett was actually attempting to tackle him upon the subject which he considered least suitable for discussion. They were sitting in his office, and the captain, in pursuance of a promise to Hartley, after two or three references to the weather, and a long account of an uninteresting conversation with a policeman, began to get on to dangerous ground.

"I've been in the firm's service a good many years now," he began.

"I hope you'll be in as many more," said Vyner, regarding him almost affectionately.

"Hartley has been with you a long time, too," continued Trimblett, slowly. "We became chums the first time we met, and we've been friends ever since. Not just fair-weather friends, but close and hearty; else I wouldn't venture to speak to you as I'm going to speak."

Mr. Vyner looked up at him suddenly, his face hard and forbidding. Then, as he saw the embarra.s.sment in the kindly old face before him, his anger vanished and he bent his head to hide a smile.

"Fire away," he said, cordially.

"I'm an old man," began the captain, solemnly.

"Nonsense," interrupted Robert, breezily. "Old man indeed! A man is as old as he feels, and I saw you the other night, outside the Golden Fleece, with Captain Walsh-"

"I couldn't get away from him," said the captain, hastily.

"So far as I could see you were not trying," continued the remorseless Robert. "You were instructing him in the more difficult and subtle movements of a hornpipe, and I must say I thought your elasticity was wonderful-wonderful."

"It was just the result of an argument I had with him," said the captain, looking very confused, "and I ought to have known better. But, as I was saying, I am an old man, and-"

"But you look so young," protested Mr. Vyner.

"Old man," repeated the captain, ignoring the remark. "Old age has its privileges, and one of them is to give a word in season before it is too late."

"'A st.i.tch in time saves nine," quoted Robert, with an encouraging nod.

"And I was speaking to Hartley the other day," continued the captain.

"He hasn't been looking very well of late, and, as far as I can make out, he is a little bit worried over the matter I want to speak to you about."

Robert Vyner's face hardened again for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and, playing with his watch-chain, regarded the other intently.

Then he smiled maliciously.

"He told me," he said, nodding.

"Told you?" repeated the captain, in astonishment.

Mr. Vyner nodded again, and bending down pretended to glance at some papers on his table.

"Green-fly," he said, gravely. "He told me that he syringes early and late. He will clear a tree, as he thinks, and while he has gone to mix another bucket of the stuff there are several generations born. Ba.s.sett informs me that a green-fly is a grandfather before it is half an hour old. So you see it is hopeless. Quite."

Captain Trimblett listened with ill-concealed impatience. "I was thinking of something more important than green-flies," he said, emphatically.

"Yes?" said Vyner, thoughtfully.

It was evident that the old sailor was impervious to hints. Rendered unscrupulous by the other's interference, and at the same time unwilling to hurt his feelings, Mr. Vyner bethought himself of a tale to which he had turned an unbelieving ear only an hour or two before.

"Of course, I quite forgot," he said, apologetically. "How stupid of me!

I hope that you'll accept my warmest congratulations and be very, very happy. I can't tell you how pleased I am. But for the life of me I can't see why it should worry Hartley."

"Congratulations?" said the captain, eying him in surprise. "What about?"

"Your marriage," replied Robert. "I only heard of it on my way to the office, and your talking put it out of my head."

"Me?" said Captain Trimblett, going purple with suppressed emotion. "My marriage? I'm not going to be married. Not at all."

"What do you mean by 'not at all?" inquired Mr. Vyner, looking puzzled.

"It isn't a thing you can do by halves."

"I'm not going to be married at all," said the captain, raising his voice. "I never thought of such a thing. Who-who told you?"

"A little bird," said Robert, with a simpering air.

Captain Trimblett took out a handkerchief, and after blowing his nose violently and wiping his heated face expressed an overpowering desire to wring the little bird's neck.

"Who was it?" he repeated.

"A little bird of the name of Sellers-Captain Sellers," replied Robert.

"I met him on my way here, hopping about in the street, simply br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with the news."