"Strictly Business"

This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler.

_By The Same Author_ Happy Rascals

“A book such as this restores the hope that the spirit of humor has not wholly perished from the earth.”

—_Philadelphia Ledger_.

“Any reader who designs to have a most enjoyable time is urged to get hold of ‘Happy Rascals’.”

—_The New York Times_.

“A solid chunk of entertainment from cover to cover.”

—_The Literary Review_, _New York Evening Post_. E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

“Strictly Business”

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By F. Morton Howard

Author Of “Happy Rascals,” Etc.

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[Picture: Decorative graphic]

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New York E. P. Dutton & Company 681 Fifth Avenue

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Copyright, 1923 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

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_All rights reserved_

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_Printed in the United States of America_

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TO David Whitelaw

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Contents

EPISODE PAGE I. “STRICTLY BUSINESS” 1 II. A WATCHING BRIEF 27 III. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 53 IV. BLACK CATS ARE ALWAYS LUCKY 75 V. A MATTER OF ADVERTISEMENT 101 VI. “ALL’S FAIR—” 124 VII. HIDDEN TREASURE 144 VIII. A SPECIAL PERFORMANCE 167 IX. THE GREEN EYES OF THE LITTLE BIRMINGHAM GOD 192 X. THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 215

_Episode I_ “Strictly Business”

In at least three inns, the landlords, on hearing the news, spoke words of grave warning to their assistants. More than one inexperienced tradesman, foolishly finding satisfaction in the tidings, began to rummage eagerly among old accounts. In the local police-station, the inspector instructed his subordinates to stand no nonsense. And the harbour-master removed his rabbits from outside his kitchen door to an apartment at the top of the house.

The “Jane Gladys,” after long absence, was back again in her home port.

Doomed to pleasant disappointment, however, were such good folks of Shorehaven as anticipated any spectacular ill-conduct that evening on the part of the returned crew. Before the rope fender of the despicable “Jane Gladys” had rubbed the sides of the quay for five minutes, an atmosphere of heavy gloom had settled upon the hardy mariners who peopled her, and this though they had arrived in port in the best of spirits, and were, moreover, furnished with several half-formulated plans of campaign which only awaited the inspiration of environment to touch success in the form of financial or liquid bonuses.

For the harbour-master, ever ready to placate the “Jane Gladys,” was waiting on the quay for her with such correspondence as had come addressed to her in her absence. And Captain Peter Putt, taking his mail and sorting through it perfunctorily, found his attention arrested by an envelope imperatively marked “Urgent.”

Ripping it open, he glanced rapidly through the missive it contained. This done, he pushed his cap to the back of his head with a helpless gesture, blowing stertorously, and then read the letter for a second time.

After that, he stared about the vessel for some while, blinking incredulously. At last, with a comprehensive sweep of his arm, he summoned his crew about him. Leaving their labours to be completed by indignant hands on the quay, they gathered round the plump little form of Captain Dutt.

“Boys,” announced the skipper, simply, “the show’s bust!”

There was a startled, perplexed silence, and then the voice of Mr. Joseph Tridge rose aggrievedly.

“What ’ave they been finding out about us now?” he wanted to know. “Some folks is never ’appy without they’re trying to make mischief. What are we supposed to ’ave done wrong now, eh?”

“It can’t be that chap we sold the fish to in Starcross,” declared Mr. Horace Dobb, the cook. “Because I saw ’im the night before we left, and ’e never said a word about it to me. Kept ’is ’ead turned stiff the other way all the time, in fact.”

“There was that chap in Teignmouth,” recalled the aged Mr. Samuel Clark, uncomfortably. “You know, what we sold the—the tobaccer to.”

“’Im?” returned Horace, the cook, with scorn. “’E ’asn’t got a leg to stand on. I never told ’im it was smuggled tobaccer, did I? I simply said it was stuff that ’adn’t paid duty. No more it ’ad! Serves ’im right for jumping to conclusions, just because a sailorman’s carrying a parcel on a dark night!”

“Yes, boys,” said the skipper, with a long, quivering sigh, as one awakening to cold reality from a happy dream, “it’s all over! All over! Itchybod!” he remarked, with sad satisfaction in finding the word. “Itchybod, that’s it!”

“And ’oo’s ’e?” truculently demanded Mr. Tridge. “What’s ’e got to say against us? Why, I’ll take my oath I ain’t ever even ’eard of ’im before!”

“It ain’t a ’im,” explained the skipper. “It’s a bit of clarsical learning I’ve picked up in Latin, and it means ‘the game’s up.’ Boys, prepare for the worst!”

“Which of us?” asked Mr. Horace Dobb, not without apprehension.

“All of us!” replied the skipper. “Our owner’s giving up business, and ’e’s goin to sell all ’is ships!”

Again there was a hush, and then, from the hinder spaces of this period of shock, there crept forth the voice of Mr. Horace Dobb, the cook, attuned to a sweet reasonableness.

“We’ll be all right,” he contended. “Just as if anybody would ever buy the old ‘Jane Gladys’!”

“Except,” slowly said Mr. Clark, “to break ’er up!”

As some ill-omened sound in the still watches of the night may paralyze its hearers into a cold, suffocating inaction, so did the grisly words of Mr. Clark bring his companions to silent, wide-eyed consternation. The debonair Mr. Peter Lock was the first to recover, but, though he roundly stigmatized Mr. Clark as being a gloomy old horror, there was no elasticity in his tone, and his effort to exhibit unconcern by lighting a cigarette was marred by the manifest shaking of his fingers.

“Well, there it is, boys,” presently said the skipper, with an unconvincing attempt at briskness. “It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you. For myself, I shan’t go to sea again after the next trip. The owner’s fixing me up a bit of a pension. And as for you chaps well, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll start looking round for fresh jobs without delay.”

“And they’ll take some finding,” stated Mr. Horace Dobb. “’Oo is likely to engage us off the ‘Jane Gladys’ I’d like to know?” he asked the skipper, with some indignation.

“Some’ow the fact that we’ve sailed on the ‘Jane Gladys’ doesn’t seem to be a recommendation,” mentioned Mr. Clark, regretfully.

“Contrariwise!” said Mr. Tridge, tersely.

“She might be bought up and repaired and repainted and refitted,” ventured Captain Butt, but with no great hope.

“’Er new owners would never keep us on, though,” frankly opined Mr. Tridge. “They’ll ’ave ’eard too much about us.”

“Ho, hindeed?” said Horace, loftily. “Well, in that case, I don’t know as I’m anxious to sail under folks what listen to gossip.”

“Luckily, we’ve got a full week before we leaves ’ere again,” remarked the skipper. “That’ll give you time to keep your ears open, and, if any of you finds anything to suit you meantime, I shan’t stand in the way of you leaving when you want to. And it’ll be about two months before the ‘Jane Gladys’ is put up for auction, so you’ll ’ave plenty of time to go on looking round.”

“And so we shall after them two months,” dismally foretold Mr. Samuel Clark. “When first I come on this boat, twenty-seven years ago,” he told the skipper, reproachfully, “I was given to understand it was a permanent job. If I’d known—”

“Well, there it is,” said Captain Dutt, again rather lamely, “and it can’t be helped.”

He waited a little while, uncomfortably conscious of the unhappy visages of his crew. Then, with symptoms of commendable emotion, he scuttled to his cabin. The mate, hitherto silent, addressed to the crew a few words of sympathy with himself, and followed his superior.

The four sailormen of the “Jane Gladys,” bleakly regarding each other, expressed their feelings in this crisis in a sort of forceful, rumbling fugue. This done, they sulkily retired to their bunks, to lie down and meditate over the impending upheaval in their affairs.

But before long Mr. Clark began to snore challengingly, while Mr. Lock sought distraction of mind by rising and performing a number of arias on his melodeon, whereat Mr. Tridge, a slave to music, sat up and joined his voice to the harmony in a melancholy wail which he called “tenor.”

Mr. Horace Dobb, the cook, was a man of temperament, and he found himself keenly resenting these encroachments on his ruminations. A person who openly plumed himself on the possession of superior brain power, he now desired opportunity to explore this gift to the fullest. Also, he had in his pocket a shilling which he preferred to spend privily, rather than in the company of Mr. Clark, who had but ninepence, or of Mr. Lock, whose sole wealth was fourpence, or of Mr. Tridge, who had nothing at all.

Wherefore, then, Mr. Horace Dobb, crying aloud his utmost annoyance at this disturbal of his peace, bounced from his bunk and repaired to the bar-parlour of the “Jolly Sailors,” a discreet inn on the quayside which gave promise of being an excellent refuge where a man, equipped with a shilling, and an anxiety about an unsettled future, might commune comfortably with his thoughts.

In this sanctuary the cook of the “Jane Gladys” remained for some while, with his cogitations becoming lighter and lighter in texture with every lift of his glass, till presently he had reverted to the normal, and was once again looking on the world as nothing more formidable than a vast territory bristling with chances for a quick-witted sea-cook to grasp.

And, therefore, when the door opened to admit Captain Simon Gooster, of the “Alert,” it was but natural that Horace’s bouyant imagination should present to him the bulky figure of the new-comer as not being alone, but as stalking in arm-in-arm with smiling Opportunity.

“Evening, sir,” said Horace, very respectfully. Captain Gooster nodded, glanced at the measure which Horace had hastily emptied, and then, disappointedly, glanced away again. Mr. Dobb ventured to commend the weather, to which Captain Gooster responded, absently, and, indeed, somewhat fretfully.

Horace at once conceded that doubtless Captain Gooster was right, but the skipper of the “Alert,” passing on, selected a seat in a remote corner and there posed unsociably.

Mr. Dobb, dissembling his irritation, entered into casual talk with another patron, who, it transpired, had a precocious child at home, an infant whose sallies so diverted Mr. Dobb that soon his glass was being refilled for him by order of the gratified parent. Immediately after, Horace’s interest in the prodigy seemed suddenly to wane, though this was due less to thankfulness than to the fact that he had perceived Captain Gooster to be looking at him in a concentrated and speculative manner.

The captain’s stare fascinated Horace, and continually his eyes roved back to the skipper of the “Alert,” and each time he accorded Captain Gooster a more ingratiating leer on meeting his gaze. At last Captain Gooster beckoned authoritatively and patted the empty chair beside him, whereat Mr. Dobb readily sprang to his feet and took the indicated place, leaving the sire of the infant prodigy indignantly helpless in the very middle of a family anecdote.

“You’re the cook of the ‘Jane Gladys,’ ain’t you?” opened Captain Gooster.

“At present, sir,” said Mr. Dobb.

“I’ve ’eard about you,” remarked Captain Gooster.

“I dare say you ’ave, sir,” guardedly returned Mr. Dobb.

“You’re the one they call ’Orace,” continued the other.

“Mostly, sir,” agreed Mr. Dobb.

“Mind you, I ain’t the kind of man ’oo’s fool enough to believe all he hears,” said the skipper of the “Alert.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Horace, gratefully.

“I’ve ’eard Cap’n Putt say you’re a real smart, sharp, clever chap.”

“Ah, well, of course ’e does know what ’e’s talking about, sir,” observed Horace, with the air of one making a concession.

“I’ve ’eard old Peter Dutt keep on by the hour about your cleverness and artfulness,” said Captain Gooster. “’E swears you’re a wonder, and, if ’alf ’e says about you is true, so you are.”

Mr. Dobb, nodding his head, modestly refrained from speech. Captain Gooster, as though he had satisfactorily disposed of all preliminaries, sat back and stroked his chin in thought for some moments.

“I’m glad I came across you to-night, ’Orace,” he said, at length. “A man with a ’ead-piece—that’s what I’m looking for.”

“Well, that _is_ lucky!” declared Horace. “I’m looking out for another job and the ‘Alert’ would just suit me.”

“Yes, I ’eard about the ‘Jane Gladys,’” said Captain Gooster, slowly. “But I wasn’t looking out for a man for my crew. It’s just a private matter. You ’elp me, if you can, and as far as a pint or two goes—”

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” interrupted Mr. Dobb, with dignity, “but brain work ain’t bought with pints, nor quarts, neither. I’m looking for a job, not a evening out.”

“Well, we’ll see,” temporized the master of the “Alert.” “If you needs a job and does me a good turn, I ain’t the man to forget it.”

“Thank you, sir; and a gentleman’s word is good enough for me!” stated Mr. Dobb, profusely. “And you won’t ever regret taking me on the ‘Alert.’ And I can start this week with you, if you like.”

“Steady!” begged the startled captain. “Why, you ain’t even ’eard what the trouble is yet.”

“I’ll soon settle it, sir, whatever it is,” vaunted Horace. “Just you tell me about it, and leave the rest to me.”

“Well, then,” said Captain Gooster, confidentially, “to begin with, you must know I’m a widower.”

“Ah, I see! You’ve been a-carrying on,” diagnosed the cook, cheerfully. “Well, we’ll soon choke ’er off. I reckon, on the ‘Alert,’ you ought to pay me—”

“A widower!” repeated Captain Gooster, frowning at Mr. Dobb’s precipitancy. “And I don’t mind confessing to you that I was disappointed in my marriage. You see, I married for love.”

“Oh, well—” commented Horace, shrugging his shoulders.

“And she married me for my money.”

“Ah, women’ll do anything for money,” said Mr. Dobb.

Captain Gooster, sitting suddenly erect, dissected the observation in silence.

“I can see what a disappointment it must ’ave been for both of you,” continued Horace. “’Owever, let’s ’ope you ’ave better luck next time, sir.”

“I mean to!” asserted Captain Gooster. “Marrying for love is a snare and a sham and a deloosion. I’ve learned wisdom. ‘Strictly business!’ that’s my motter in future.”

“And it ain’t a bad motter, neither, sir,” approved Mr. Dobb, thoughtfully. “Strictly business!” he repeated, nodding his head over it. “It’s a jolly good motter.”

“Yes, and next time,” went on Captain Gooster, “I marries for money. And I may add, what’s more, that I’ve got my eye on a certain lady already.”

“’As she got ’er eye on you, though?” queried Horace, sagely.

“She ’as. In fact, not to beat about the bush, both of ’em ’as!”

“Both of ’em?” queried Horace.

“There’s two parties,” explained the master of the ‘Alert.’ “I’m keeping my eye upon both of ’em.”

“Once I ’ad my eye on two parties at the same time,” recalled Mr. Dobb. “One day they got introduced to each other. And I went ’ome in a cab.”

“My two ’ave known each other all their lives.”

“Well, they won’t go on knowing each other much longer,” acutely prophesied Mr. Dobb.

“And they lives together in the same ’ouse.”

“If you’ll excuse me saying so,” observed Horace, civilly, “you’ve got a dashed sight more pluck than sense. Two in the some town is bad enough for the ’eart, with all the excitement you get in turning a corner when you’re out with one of ’em. But two in the same ’ouse—”

“It’s mother and daughter, you see,” elucidated Captain Gooster. “Goffley is the name. Mrs. Goffley is a widow, and Ann’s ’er daughter. They live in Shorehaven ’ere.”

“First I’ve ’eard of ’em,” said Horace.

“Ah, they’re new-comers. They bought that little second-’and shop what Meyers used to keep at the corner of Fore Street. A snug little business. It only wants a man be’ind it, and it’ll be a little copper-mine.”

“And you’ve chosen yourself to be the man be’ind it? Good luck to you, sir!”

“What with my little bit saved up, and my job on the ‘Alert,’ and the little shop earning profits at ’ome, I shan’t be doing so badly for my old age,” stated Captain Gooster, complacently. “But there’s just one little drawback—I shall ’ave to marry one of them two females, and each time I imagine myself married to one, I finds myself wishing it ’ad been the other. You’ve only to see ’em both, and you’d understand.”

“Well, which of ’em’s got the money?” asked Mr. Dobb. “That ought to settle the question easy enough.”

“That’s just the trouble. I can’t find out for certain which of ’em ’as got the cash. I’ve ’eard rumours that old Goffley left all ’is money to ’is daughter, with instructions to ’er to look after ’er ma. And then I’ve ’eard rumours that ’e’s left everything to ’is wife, with instructions to look after ’er daughter. Far as I can see,” disconsolately ended Captain Gooster, “whichever of them females I marries, I shall always ’ave the other as a burden round my neck.”

“Which of ’em gives all the orders?” inquired Mr. Dobb. “’Oo is the boss of the two?”

“They both bosses,” returned the skipper of the “Alert.” “And they both tries to boss each other, most independent. That’s what makes it so difficult. I’ve tried all ways to find out which is the one I ought to make up to, but I can’t. And that’s where I want your ’elp.”

“I see,” said Horace, softly. “That’s what you’re going to give me a job on the ‘Alert’ for, eh?”

“Well, you get this job settled satisfactory for me, and you won’t ’ave no cause to complain,” promised Captain Gooster. “You be ’elpful to me and you’ll be ’elpful to yourself.”

“Well, suppose you was to ask ’em straight out, sort of joking like, which one of ’em ’ad got the money,” suggested Horace, but with no great confidence.

“Tried that!” retorted Captain Gooster, curtly. “No good.”

“Which of ’em seemed most annoyed at the question?” asked Mr. Dobb, shrewdly. “_She’d_ be the one ’oo ’adn’t got any.”

“They neither of them said nothing. They just looked at me, and I began to talk about the weather.”

Horace, leaning back, folded his arms and tightly closed his eyes. Captain Gooster realizing that his companion was thus incubating thought, forbore from offering further speech, but sat waiting in some anxiety for demonstration of Mr. Dobb’s ingenuity.

“You’ll ’ave to take me up there and let me see ’em,” said Horace, at length. “Introdooce me to ’em as the new cook you’re signing for the ‘Alert.’ That’ll be the truth, so it’ll be quite all right.”

“What? A skipper introdooce ’is new cook—”

“Well, if they seems surprised at all, you can tell ’em what a superior young man I am really, and ’ow I’m an old friend of yours, and so on. It’s the only way I can do anything—I must see ’em personal. Suppose I was to start making inquiries off the neighbours, for instance. The fat would soon be in the fire then, wouldn’t it?”

“Matter of fact,” confessed the skipper, with reserve, “there ’as been more gossip about already than I care for.”

“Let me see ’em and keep my eyes open and ask a question ’ere and there, most innocent, and I’ll find out the truth quick enough,” boasted Mr. Dobb. “It won’t be too late to call on ’em to-night, will it? Just about right, I should think; with luck, we ought to catch ’em just at supper-time. You wait ’ere, and I’ll run back and tidy myself a bit.”

“All right. I should think that’s the best thing that can be done,” said Captain Gooster, ambiguously.

Mr. Dobb took a swift departure to the “Jane Gladys,” finding an empty fo’c’sle, and thus being able to garb himself for ceremony without loss of time in answering questions. Returning to the “Jolly Sailors,” his improved appearance won a grunt of approval from Captain Gooster, and then, together, the two men repaired to their objective in Fore Street.

They found Mrs. Goffley and her daughter amid the ordered confusion of the little second-hand shop. Captain Gooster made Horace known to the ladies as an old acquaintance unexpectedly encountered in the town. Introductions thus achieved, the gentlemen were hospitably conducted to partake of supper amid the more congenial surroundings of the back parlour.

Mr. Dobb claimed but little prominence in the talk, and, indeed, seemed bent on eliminating himself as far as possible from the interest of his hostesses, and this was rendered the more easy for him by the fact that both ladies appeared to concentrate their attentions on the skipper of the “Alert.” Mr. Dobb, however, was vigilant towards all that was going forward, and when once or twice the ladies bickered, he plainly submitted every word of their spirited utterance to the closest analysis.

And when at length they left the house, Horace had arrived at certain deductions, which he hastened to lay before Captain Gooster.

“It’s the old gal what’s got the money,” he stated. “She done the carving, for one thing. And, for another, it was ’er that put the coal on the fire. Besides, I ask you, ain’t it only reason that ’er late ’usband would ’ave left ’er everything, knowing from the look of ’er that she couldn’t ever really ’ope to get married again? No, I bet that rumour you ’eard was right—’e’s left ’is money to ’is wife, with instructions to look after ’er daughter. P’r’aps she’s to ’ave it after the old gal’s popped off,” propounded Horace, delicately.

“Ah, but that’s just what I’m frightened of,” said Captain Gooster. “Suppose I married the old lady, and one day she pegs out and the daughter gets the lot? A nice return that ’ud be to me for all my kindness, wouldn’t it?”

“But there’s nothing to prevent the old lady ’anding over the money to ’er second ’usband while she’s alive, to speckylate with, is there? And once it’s in your name—”

“’Orace, if I could only think ’alf as clear as you,” remarked Captain Gooster, “I’d be driving my own carriage and pair by now!”

He halted, gazed back at the Goffley abode, and patently came to decision.

“Wait ’ere for me,” he directed. “I’m going to strike while the iron is hot. I’m going to propose to the old geezer now and get it over!”

He traced his way to the shop, knocked, and was admitted. Scarce five minutes had elapsed ere he was again at Horace’s side. Captain Gooster’s reply, in response to an interested question, took the form of a fierce growl of wrath.

“What, she wouldn’t ’ave you?” asked Horace, in surprise.

“Oh, yes, she ’ad me right enough!” exclaimed Captain Gooster, with extreme bitterness. “Oh, she’s ’ad me proper! And _you’ll_ get a job with me on the ‘Alert,’ I don’t think! Clever? Ha! Smart? Ha, ha! Sharp? Oh, ha, ha, ha! Why, I believe your brains must be more like a wool mat than anything else!”

“But if she’s accepted you—”

“Accepted me?” bellowed Captain Gooster, passionately. “She jumped at me! Put ’er arms round my neck and made such a noise a-kissing of me that ’er daughter come ’urrying in from the kitchen at it! And Ann said it was ridic’lous, and Mrs. Goffley said it was love, and Ann crinkled ’er nose sarcastic, and told ’er mother that I was simply marrying ’er for ’er money, as any one could see.”

“There you are!” cried Mr. Dobb. “You picked the right one, anyway.”

“Wait a bit!” urged Captain Gooster. “Of course, I says at once that I’m pained and ’urt by such a suggestion, and that of course I’m only marrying Mrs. Goffley for love. ‘Sure?’ she asks, smiling at me in a way what would ’ave been tantalizing in a young gal. ‘Positive certain!’ says I. ‘Money,’ I says. ‘What’s money to me? I’ve got plenty of my own!’ ‘There you are!’ she says to Ann. ‘Just as well though, ain’t it?’ says Ann, with a sniff. ‘Because, you know, ma, you ain’t got any money, ’ave you? It all belongs to me, don’t it?’”

Mr. Dobb, finding verbal comment inadequate, took off his cap and shook his head helplessly.

“Well, when I ’eard that,” narrated Captain Gooster, “the room sort of went round and round for a bit, and the next thing I knew was that I was saying I must not keep you waiting here any longer. And, with that, I stumbled over the mat and left the place. And as for you—”

“’Alf a minute, sir,” requested Mr. Dobb. “I can see you don’t understand diplomaticism. You ’ave to run a few risks to start with, and then you sets ’em right afterwards, when you’ve got what you wants—that’s diplomaticism.”

“If _you_ was to get what you really wants—”

“After all, sir, it’s only what you asked me to do,” contended Horace. “‘’Elp me to find out which one of ’em ’as got the money,’” says you to me, “‘and I’ll give you a job on the “Alert.”’ Well, I _’ave_ ’elped you to find out. You know now that it’s the daughter what’s got it!”

“Yes, and I’ve been and proposed to the mother!” groaned Captain Gooster.

“Well, you’ve only got to change over,” suggested Horace.

“Step back and say it was really Ann I meant to ask, I suppose?” groaned Captain Gooster. “Just as if the daughter would ’ave anything to do with me now! Just as if the old ’un would let me off ’er ’ooks now, the artful, deceiving old cat!”

“You could work up a quarrel with ’er,” prompted Mr. Dobb.

“She ain’t the sort to quarrel till after we’re married,” ruefully answered the skipper of the “Alert.” “After that, it’ll be a different story, I bet!”

Mr. Dobb, coming to a standstill, lightly tickled the nape of his neck for some minutes.

“I’ve got it!” he pronounced, brightly. “Call and see ’er to-morrow, and speak to ’er as man to man. Tell ’er you made a mistake, and it ain’t love but only respect for ’er old age!”

“And she’ll just answer me back snappy that she ain’t making a mistake, any way,” prophesied Captain Gooster. “No, there ain’t no way out, that I can see, short of suicide. And,” he added, lapsing into extraordinary gloom, “I don’t know that I wouldn’t prefer _that_ to that old gal with no money be’ind ’er! And as for you and a berth on the ‘Alert’,” he ended, savagely, “you just let me catch you on board ’er for a single moment, even on a visit!”

He swung round and strode off, totally disregarding the expostulatory noises of his companion. Mr. Dobb, thus deserted, sauntered along in restive dejection, but suddenly a greater decisiveness came into his bearing, and soon he was cantering along in eager pursuit of the master of the “Alert.”

“Now—now—now I _’ave_ got it, sir!” he puffed, catching up with Captain Gooster. “Come to me in a flash, it did! You must take me along to see the Goffleys again to-morrow night.”

Captain Gooster violently mentioned a mutual meeting, which involved considerable travel, as having priority over Mr. Dobb’s suggestion.

“You must keep on taking me there,” insisted Horace, undaunted.

“Just to make me laugh,” observed Captain Gooster, grimly, “tell me what the idea is.”

“Why, I’ll sink my feelings, and _I’ll_ carry on a bit with the old gal!”

“Carry on with—” gasped the “Alert’s” skipper.

“Make goo-goo eyes at ’er, flirt with ’er, play slap-’ands with ’er,” amplified Mr. Dobb. “And if you don’t give me a job on the ‘Alert’ after _that_— Why, chaps ’as got medals for less than that! Far less!”

“Give you a job on the ‘Alert’ for playing slap ’ands with my missis-to-be?” queried Captain Gooster, in bewilderment.

“Yes; and one day you catches us at it,” sketched Mr. Dobbs, knowingly. “And you accuses us of flirting, and you ’as a tremendous row with ’er, and, though it breaks your ’eart, you casts ’er off! And there you are—free! And you can bet that quarrelling with her ma will give you a good send-off to begin courting Ann with. You can see that she’s that sort.”

“Yes; and what ’appens to you?”

“Oh, I get that job on the ‘Alert’,” answered Horace, simply. “You can trust me to protect myself safe enough where women are concerned.”

Captain Gooster, weighing the pros and cons, could detect no flaw in the scheme. Next afternoon, by appointment, he met Mr. Dobb at the corner of Fore Street, and together they repaired to the little second-hand shop. Enthusiastically did Mrs. Goffley bid them enter and stay to tea, an invitation which was signalized, rather than seconded, by a prolonged sniff from the younger lady.

Mr. Dobb, now reversing his behaviour of the previous evening, exhibited himself in the light of a sparkling blade. Riddles galore did he propound to enliven the proceedings, and many were the diverting anecdotes he furnished forth, though, indeed, in some of these he checked himself, finishing them a trifle lamely with endings which had the flavour of improvisation about them.

His geniality, however, went far towards neutralizing the acrimony of Miss Goffley, and by the time adieux were said Captain Gooster was well satisfied with his confederate.

“I reckon you’ve made a fine start, ’Orace,” he said, as they strolled together down Fore Street. “And to-morrow you must talk more particularly to the old gal, so as to give me a chance to try to make up a bit of the leeway with Ann.”

Such heed did Mr. Dobb give to this instruction that when, on the following evening, they called at the little shop, he devoted his conversation almost exclusively to the widow.

“Splendid!” was his patron’s verdict, when they left. “I see she was a bit impatient at first, but before long she was listening to every word you said. Why, she never even noticed that I was talking quite a lot to Ann.”

“Ah, and she was answering you, what’s more! I see you! What did you say to ’er?” asked Mr. Dobb, curiously.

“Oh, I was just sort of generally mysterious and wistful and ’eart-’eavy, like you advised,” replied Captain Gooster. “And I got ’er to confess that there was a time when she ’oped—”

“Then she’s as good as yours!” joyfully declared Horace. “And the berth on the ‘Alert’ is as good as mine!”

It was during the following evening that there occurred a startling development in the engagement of Captain Gooster to Mrs. Goffley. Horace and that lady had been chatting together gaily, and Miss Goffley was permitting the captain to turn over her music at the piano for her, when suddenly the skipper of the “Alert” sprang to the centre of the room and crashed both his fists down upon the table.

Mrs. Goffley, with an agitated squeal, tugged her hand away from Mr. Dobb’s grasp.

“Too late, ma’am, too late!” thundered Captain Gooster.

“I—he—we—he was only telling me my fortune!” protested Mrs. Goffley, guiltily.

“I see ’im telling it,” retorted the skipper, grimly. “Do you think I ain’t got any eyes? Carrying-on! Flirting! That’s what you was up to! Don’t trouble to make up lies about it.”

“Just because I was making myself pleasant to your friend,” began Mrs. Goffley, with spirit.

“You go on making yourself pleasant to ’im!” recommended Captain Gooster. “I’m done with you!”

“And I must say, ma, I’m not surprised, either,” mentioned Miss Goffley, with a toss of her head.

“I’ve got witnesses to prove you was carrying-on,” said the captain. “I’ve got the law on my side, and that’s all I need. I’m finished with you, ma’am, and I wish you a very good evening. Oh, a very good evening, indeed, ma’am!”

Aloofly averting his gaze from the agitated dame, he hurried from the house as speedily as possible. Horace, half an hour later, came to him in the bar-parlour of the “Jolly Sailors.”

“There was a proper bust-up after you’d gone,” Mr. Dobb said, with relish. “But, after they’d both ’ad ’istericks, things was a bit quieter.”

“And Mrs. Goffley?”

“She said it was good riddance to bad rubbish! Said so over and over again. And now for business after pleasure. When do I start on the Alert’?”

“Well, we sails at the end of the week, as you know, on the same day as the ‘Jane Gladys.’ You can come then, if all goes well.”

“Ah, I knew I shouldn’t go begging for long!” said Horace, with considerable pride. “I knew I shouldn’t be long finding something to suit me.”

“I shall ’ave to get the Goffley business settled first, though,” hedged Captain Gooster. “I’ve got to bring Ann up to the mark yet, don’t forget. Not that I ’ave any fears, though. Why, she’s as good as said she’d—”

“But, my word, what a life them two women will be leading each other for the next few weeks!” exclaimed Horace, with a shudder.

“I shall get Ann to keep quiet about our engagement when we _are_ engaged. And when we get married it’ll be by special licence, unbeknown to ’er ma. I can afford it, if Ann’s got the money coming to ’er.”

“You take my advice, sir,” urged Horace, earnestly, “and rush your wedding through as quick as ever you can. Don’t you run any risks, for the old gal will be doing all in ’er power to p’ison the young gal’s mind against you. There’s many a slip between the bottle and the glass, don’t forget.”

“I’d get it settled to-morrow, if I could.”

“Well, luckily, I’m still friends there, don’t forget. I’m waiting to quarrel with the old gal when it’s more convenient. At present, she just sits looking loving and ’opeful at me. And I’ll call round there to-morrow morning, first thing, and get Ann to meet you somewhere, and you must persuade ’er as ’ard as you can. Pack all the love you’d make in a ordinary engagement into three days, an’ get ’er to marry you before you sails. That’s the way to do things, if you wants to be sure of ’er. And if you wants any odd notes or messages taken to ’er, I’ll see to ’em for you.”

“You don’t suppose I wants to go near the ’ouse, do you?” asked Captain Gooster, with a shiver.

And thus three more days passed, while the affairs of the “Alert” were shamelessly subjugated to the claims of Cupid. On board the “Jane Gladys” Horace was watched vigilantly by his shipmates, and he maddened them with constant veiled allusions to a most lucrative and superior berth which his talents and charms were securing for him. Already had he handed in his provisional resignation to Captain Peter Dutt, already was he bearing himself as a gentleman of social standing far above that of his present companions.

Came the afternoon prior to the day which was to witness the departure both of the “Alert” and the “Jane Gladys” from Shorehaven.

Captain Simon Gooster, passing up Fore Street, had on his arm a lady whose countenance exhibited pride and triumph. For a climax had been achieved at the registrar’s office, and Miss Ann Goffley was now Miss Ann Goffley no longer, but was, for better or for worse, Mrs. Simon Gooster.

“There’s no need to be flustered,” said the bridegroom to the bride, when they reached the little shop. “We’ve got to break the news to ’er sooner or later, and ’Orace ’as promised to be on ’and to give us a ’elping word ’ere and there. She can’t let off all the steam she’d like to—not in front of ’im.”

“I shall be flustered if I like!” insisted Mrs. Gooster. “Don’t you start ordering me about! If I ain’t allowed to be flustered on my wedding-day, I should like to know when I am allowed to be.”

Captain Gooster, after a glance of dawning uneasiness at his bride, led the way through the shop. The new Mrs. Gooster’s mother was unsuspectingly laying the table for tea, and Mr. Dobb, to the captain’s relief, was seated in the arm-chair.

“We’ve done it!” announced Captain Gooster.

“I’m Mrs. Gooster now,” said the younger lady.

“Lor’!” exclaimed Mrs. Goffley. She turned to Horace and giggled coyly. “Shall we tell ’em?” she asked.

“Not much to tell,” returned Mr. Dobb, airily. “Only that you and me was married, too, this morning, by special licence!”

“Lor’!” cried the skipper’s wife, in her turn.

“Quite private,” explained Horace, briefly. “She even paid for the licence, so as to get it over quick. I fancy she must ’ave guessed what you and—and Ann was up to.”

“Oh, well, there’s no accounting for tastes!” said the skipper of the “Alert.” “Anyway, there can’t be any cause for ill-feeling between any of us now, can there? But, really, I don’t quite see, ’Orace, ’ow _you_ come to—”

“So you two got married on the quiet, too, did you?” interrupted Mrs. Dobb, with a curious glint in her eyes. “Well, p’r’aps you was wise. Because, of course, you must ’ave known that I’d never ’ave given _my_ consent, after the way you treated _me_, Cap’n Gooster?”

“Yes, I knew that well enough,” agreed the skipper.

“You married Ann for her money, of course,” stated the elder lady, dogmatically.

“Nothing of the sort!” stoutly maintained Captain Gooster. “Love—nothing but love! It was because I’d found out that it was ’er I really loved all the time that I broke it off with you. If Ann ’adn’t got a single penny coming to ’er—”

“And she ’asn’t!” said Mrs. Dobb, with emphasis.

“Trying to frighten me?” suggested the smiling captain. “Why, you admitted to me yourself that it was ’er that ’ad all the money!”

“So she ’ad,” returned Mrs. Gooster’s mother—“_then_!”

“What do you mean—then?” asked the captain, thickly.

“Why, it was all to be ’ers,” explained the new Mrs. Dobb, “unless she married without my consent. My ’usband arranged it like that to protect ’er from fortune ’unters, and very lucky ’e did, too! You needn’t shake your ’ead! It’s all quite true. ’Ere’s a copy of my ’usband’s will. I showed it to Dobb ’ere when ’e was trying to console me that evening after you’d left—you know, when you threw me over!”

“You—you _knew_ when you advised me to—” roared the skipper, wheeling on Mr. Dobb.

“I did,” shamelessly admitted Mr. Dobb. “Part of it I worked out, and part of it worked itself out for me! You see, I—I ’appened to fall genuine in love with my new wife ’ere and—”

“You needn’t trouble to tell lies about it!” shouted the skipper.

“And don’t you roar at my ’usband like that, neither!” ordered the elder lady. “And I may as well tell you that I’d ’ave taken ’im if I ’ated ’im—I’d ’ave taken the first man what come along! Anything to let you see you wasn’t the only chance I’d got! And—”

“Well, but what becomes of the money that should ’ave been ’ers—the money you’ve diddled me out of?” cried the captain.

“Why,” said Horace, softly, “it just stays with _us_!”

“And you knew this when you advised me to get married on the quiet to Ann, yonder?”

“Certingly,” said the unabashed Horace. “Didn’t we both agree that ‘Strictly Business!’ was a jolly good motter?”

“And you,” went on the skipper, wheeling on his bride—“you didn’t tell me nothing, for fear of losing me?”

“And so I should have,” she said. “And don’t you stare at me like that, neither! If you think that I’m the kind of wife that can be bullied, you’re making a big mistake! And now I’ll get my portmanteau, and you can take me down to your cabin on the ‘Alert.’ You don’t think I’m going to stay on in the house with these people, do you?”

“Still, any time you’re passing,” said the cook, “I’ll be pleased to welcome my stepdaughter and my son-in-law. _I_ don’t bear no ill-will, and I shouldn’t like to think that others would.”

“Well, you’ve lost your berth on the ‘Alert,’ any way,” said Captain Gooster, inadequately. “You needn’t think I’d ’ave you now, because I shouldn’t!”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t accept it, in any case,” said Mr. Horace Dobb. “’Oo’s to look after the shop? You said yourself that it needed a man, and I’ve provided myself for it. And you know ’ow useful I can make myself, don’t you?”

* * * * *

That evening, when Messrs. Lock and Tridge and Clark, hearing something of what had transpired, trooped down to Fore Street to find Horace, they discovered him already engaged in bringing the stock and fixtures into line with his own ideas on such matters.

Very readily he told them the tale of his marriage, and, further, pointed out that the future might hold many occasions when his shipmates of the “Jane Gladys” might find it profitable to link their talents temporarily to the fortunes of the little second-hand shop.

But when Mr. Tridge remarked that the “Jane Gladys” was sailing early on the morrow, and that therefore a little loan would be both acceptable and timely to her crew, Mr. Horace Dobb did not reply in words.

Instead, he stood erect and pointed over his shoulder, with a jerk of his thumb, at a notice which he had been at some pains to illuminate on a panel of wood, and which now hung conspicuously on the wall of the little shop.

Simultaneously, Messrs. Lock, Tridge, and Clark turned to regard the board. It bore the simple legend, “_Strictly Business_.”

_Episode Ii_ A Watching Brief

Mr. Peter Lock, in the bowels of the “Jane Gladys,” had attired himself for outdoor promenade with a meticulous attention to detail which had spurred Mr. Joseph Tridge to scornful mention of beauty-doctors and mashers and tailors’ dummies. Mr. Lock, in no wise offended by these oblique compliments to his appearance, had finally lingered for a full half-minute before the cracked little mirror in fastidious self-examination, and then had gone ashore for the express purpose of keeping an appointment with a friend. Five minutes later he reappeared. He explained that a complication had arisen, for his friend had brought a friend with her to the trysting-place, so that another gentleman was now indispensable to secure balance to the party. As the result of eloquent appeals and lavish promises, Mr. Tridge was reluctantly impressed into the role of temporary friend to the friend’s friend.

Matters thus adjusted, Messrs. Tridge and Lock departed, leaving the fo’c’sle of the “Jane Gladys” empty but for the brooding figure of the stout and aged Mr. Samuel Clark.

For a long while Mr. Clark sat on the edge of his bunk, wrapped in doleful reverie, and motionless save when, from time to time, a deep sigh agitated his vast shoulders. At last, however, a well-remembered whistle sounded from the quay, and instantly roused Mr. Clark from his gloomy meditations.

“’Orace!” he exclaimed, sitting erect, and his eyes began to gleam with a dawning hopefulness.

A few minutes later Mr. Horace Dobb descended into that fo’c’sle wherein aforetime he had been so prominent a dweller, though now it needed strong imagination to believe that, less than three weeks ago, he had served the “Jane Gladys” in such a menial capacity as cook. For Mr. Dobb was wearing a horseshoe pin and a massive watch-chain, and a soft hat of adventurous aspect. He carried a bloated umbrella which had somehow acquired a quality of being a mace-like symbol of authority. And, also, Mr. Dobb was smoking a cigar.

In short, he presented a visible proof that marriage need not invariably be a failure, provided that one selects as bride a manageable widow with a snug little business of her own.

“Doing the Cinderella hact all by yourself, are you?” observed Mr. Dobb. “It couldn’t be better. I’ve brought some one on purpose to see you.”

“I could trot across to the ‘Jolly Sailors’ and get—” began Mr. Clark. “At least,” he amended, ingenuously, “if I ’ad any money I could.”

“Not necessary,” stated Mr. Dobb. “’E’s a teetotaller.”

“A teetotaller?” echoed Mr. Clark, suspiciously. “’Ere, what’s the game—bringing a teetotaller to see _me_? ’Strewth, ’Orace!” he cried, in sudden alarm. “You ain’t going to tell me that being well-off ’as gone to your ’ead and given you silly ideas, are you? You ain’t going to tell me that you’ve turned teetotaller, too, and the pair of you ’ave come down to try and convert me? I won’t ’ave it!” he declared, wrathfully. “I ain’t going to ’ave no one trying to meddle about with my constitootion, never mind ’ow old a friend ’e is!”

“And don’t _you_ start thinking evil of _me_!” returned Mr. Dobb, with spirit. “I won’t ’ave it, neither!”

“Well,” protested Mr. Clark, significantly, “_you_ a-going about with teetotallers!”

“Well, p’r’aps it do look fishy,” conceded Mr. Dobb. “But you oughter know me better than that! You know me motter, Sam, don’t you? ‘Strictly Business!’ Well, my friendship with ’im is strictly business. You don’t suppose I could ever ’ave a friendly friendship with a teetotaller, do you?”

“I should ’ope not, indeed!” answered Mr. Clark, severely.

“I met ’im in the way of business, and I’ve got to know ’im pretty well,” continued Mr. Dobb. “And now there’s something he wants done, and I thought of you for the job at once.”

“Much obliged to you,” said Mr. Clark, stiffly, “but I ain’t sure that I wants to do jobs for teetotallers.”

“Don’t you be a silly old idjit, Sam,” tolerantly recommended Mr. Dobb. “You don’t want to go cutting off your nose to spite your face—particularly with the sort of face _you’ve_ got! I was only speaking figgerative,” he hastened to add, at Mr. Clark’s indignant stare. “Ain’t the old ‘Jane Gladys’ to be sold soon, and won’t you be out of a job then?”

“I was thinking about that when you come down ’ere,” admitted Mr. Clark, sorrowfully.

“Very well, then,” argued Mr. Dobb, “you want to do the best you can for yourself. You take on this ’ere job I’ve mentioned, and you’ll ’ave a nice easy life ashore for the next week or two, and all the time you can be looking round for a proper job. And you’re far more likely to find one by being on the spot than by rushing round frantic after you’re paid off, ain’t you?”

“Of course I am,” agreed Mr. Clark. “And I know the skipper’ll let me go any time I want to. ’E said so, only the night before last, when me and Peter and Joe give ’im a parting present for three-and-nine.”

“There you are!” cried Mr. Dobb. “You take on this job with the chap I’ve brought—Poskett, ’is name is. And while you’re doing it, me and you will keep our eyes skinned to find you a permanent job in the town.”

“I take it as very kind of you, ’Orace,” said Mr. Clark.

“Then you takes it wrong,” returned Mr. Dobb. “I’m doing it for business—strictly for business. You and me and them others ’ave worked a few good plans in the past, and I can see that my little second-’and shop in Fore Street gives us a chance to work a lot more, if we was all close together. I mean to get you and Peter Lock and Joe Tridge all settled ’ere near me in Shore’aven. _Then_ we’ll show ’em!” he prophesied, with satisfaction.

“All four of us ’atching up ideas together again? Oh, blessed wision! Oh, ’appy prospect!” murmured Mr. Clark, moved to rhapsody. “Bring on your teetotallers!” he invited. “With that before me, I’m ready for anything!”

“I’ll call ’im, and ’e’ll tell you all about it,” said Mr. Dobb, and, going on deck, he soon returned to the fo’c’sle in convoy of a short, pallid gentleman, whose very side-whiskers seemed trimmed into semblance of stern rectitude.

Horace introduced Mr. Poskett to Mr. Clark and the trio sat down at the table. After Mr. Poskett had refused the offer of a cup of cold water, considerately suggested by Mr. Clark, the object of the visit was at once approached.

“It’s like this, Mr. Clark,” stated the visitor, “children is very difficult things to manage properly these days, I find.”

“Thrash ’em!” advised Mr. Clark, assuming an air of efficiency in all matters. “And not only thrash ’em, but keep on thrashing ’em! That’s the only way to manage children, it seems to me, if you wants a quiet life.”

“Yes, but what about it when the child is a girl of twenty?” demurred Mr. Poskett.

“Stop ’er pocket-money!” promptly advised Mr. Clark.

“Yes; but supposing she earns her own pocket-money?” propounded Mr. Poskett.

Mr. Clark, emitting a baffled grunt, passed to silent examination of the problem. Mr. Horace Dobb, settling himself deep in his seat, tilted back his head and puffed at his cigar, as one who postponed intervention till the affair was more clearly established.

“You—you might lock up ’er bonnets,” hazarded Mr. Clark at last, but with no great confidence.

“But she ’as to go to her employment behind the counter at Messrs Wicklett & Sharp’s shop in the High Street,” objected Mr. Poskett. “She comes ’ome for dinner, and goes back again to the shop in the afternoon.”

There was another pause, and then Mr. Clark regretfully admitted that it seemed to him something was wrong somewhere, but he could not quite tell where it was. He respectfully intimated that he might understand better were Mr. Poskett to be more explicit in information.

“My niece,” said Mr. Poskett, complying. “She’s been and got herself engaged!”

“Tut-tut!” murmured Mr. Clark, politely shocked.

“She has! Without my permission! She never even asked me!” complained Mr. Poskett. “Not that I should have given it, mark you, if she had asked! What right has she to go and get herself engaged when she is needed at home?”

“Ah, what right, indeed?” asked Mr. Clark, with indignation.

“Where’s ’er gratitude to me and ’er loving aunt, who have brought ’er up since she was eleven?” demanded Mr. Poskett. “Is it not ’er duty to tarry with us while we ’ave need of ’er? We cannot spare ’er, for she is too useful. I grant that she ’as done ’er fair share of work in the past, but that ain’t any reason why she should seek to avoid it in the future, is it?”

“Certainly not!” stated Mr. Clark.

“She’s got a earthly ’ome where she’s well looked after and kept up to the mark,” declared Mr. Poskett, his voice taking a high-pitched monotone. “Do we not know ’oo it is that lays in wait to find work for idle ’ands? Work and plenty of it is the only right way to bring up a young female. Idleness of body leads to idleness of thought, my friends, and—”

Mr. Dobb emitted a cough with a long, droning tail to it, and this served its purpose in restoring Mr. Poskett to more natural speech.

“Anyway,” he said, “when Nancy ain’t at the shop, we does our best to keep ’er time properly hemployed for ’er. As I say, it’s the only right way to bring young females up, and Nancy will admit one day, when me and my wife ’ave passed away to our reward, that she was very well brought up indeed! Tidy up the ’ouse, and off to the shop; dinner, wash-up, back to the shop again; ’ome again, bit more tidying up, and then bed,” he sketched. “Now, ain’t that a model life for a young female? What more can a right-minded girl want?”

“Ah, what, indeed?” sighed Mr. Clark.

“But is she content?” asked Mr. Poskett, sadly. “Oh, dear, no! She knows that all flesh is grass, and yet she talks about wanting amusements and recreation! And her nearly twenty! And now and then she gets quite out of control, and indulges in all manner of worldly vanities. Only last week she went to a whist-drive! When she come back, I wrestled with the evil spirit within ’er for a full hour, trying to get ’er to say she repented.”

“And did she?” queried Mr. Clark.

“She did not, alas! She was that ’ardened that she only said the enjoyment was worth a bit of suffering for afterwards! And now she’s gone and got ’erself engaged!”

“’Oo to?” asked Mr. Clark.

“That’s just it,” complained Mr. Poskett. “That’s what we wants to know! We don’t know ’oo ’e is, and she won’t tell us; and she’s that deceitful we can’t find out! I spent ’alf an hour, only yesterday, questioning and ex’orting ’er, and she had not even the grace to cry! If it wasn’t for all the money we’ve spent in bringing ’er up, and for ’er being so useful in the ’ome, I’d ’ave nothing more to do with ’er! I believe she would like things to come to such a sorry pass, too!”

“And I’d not blame ’er—” began Mr. Clark, absently. “I mean,” he began again, more carefully, “and I shouldn’t blame you, neither.”

“I must do my duty,” said Mr. Poskett, unctuously. “’Er place is with me and ’er aunt, and I must keep ’er there!”

“And you ain’t got the least idea ’oo the young fellow is?” asked Mr. Clark.

“Not the least! She won’t bring ’im to the ’ome. She knows too much for that, because I’d soon send ’im about ’is business, ’ooever ’e is! She won’t even tell us ’is name! All she says is that he don’t hold with the same views as us about anything, and that there’d only be trouble if we met. And so there would! And she says she prefers things to go on as they are for a little longer, till they’re quite sure they really wants to marry each other. She says ’is very way of earning a living would ’orrify me, so don’t that just show you? Can you wonder I’m ’eart-broken?”

“If I was you,” said Mr. Clark, resolutely, “I wouldn’t rest till I’d found out ’oo ’e is! I wouldn’t be beat by a gal!”

“Ah, now you’re coming to it, Sam!” struck in Mr. Dobb. “That’s something of the idea I’ve talked over with Poskett ’ere. What ’e wants is a kind of watchdog to that niece of ’is; some one ’oo’ll follow ’er everywhere, and find out ’oo it is that’s making up to ’er. Then Poskett will know ’ow to act. But, you see, ’im being a big man in the prayers-and-penitence line round ’ere, it ’ud look so bad for ’im to go loafing round the streets all day playing private detective. And ’is missis is too delikit, she says.”

“As a local preacher,” said Mr. Poskett, “I ’ave many hengagements, and between them and business my time is fully occupied.”

“In short,” remarked Mr. Dobb, “’e’s ready to pay you to follow ’is niece about everywhere in ’er spare time, so as you can find out ’oo’s the young man. And when you ’ave found out—which will take you some days, I expect, the pair of ’em being very artful to all accounts you must go straight to Poskett and tell ’im. That’s all ’e wants you to do, and ’e’ll pay you well for it. But you’ll ’ave to give every minute of your time to it, otherwise ’e wouldn’t go to the trouble and expense of engaging some one special for the job—would you, Poskett?”

“That is so,” agreed Mr. Poskett. “Well, what do you say, Mr. Clark? Will you help to restore a girl to the proper henjoyment of ’er ’ome life?”

“When you puts it like that,” said Mr. Clark, slowly, “it don’t sound so— I must say, though, it ain’t exactly the sort of job—”

He broke off to shake his head in a troubled, dissatisfied way. In so doing, he caught a glimpse of Mr. Dobb’s face, and was arrested by the slight but emphatic nod which Mr. Dobb accorded him.

“All right!” said Mr. Clark, at once obeying the habit of years and yielding initiative to the ex-cook. “I’ll do it!”

Things progressed swiftly after that decision, and outstanding details were settled all the sooner because Mr. Dobb had somehow taken over control of the negotiations. Ten minutes later the trio had left the “Jane Gladys” and Mr. Dobb was returning to his emporium, while Mr. Clark was taken by Mr. Poskett to his abode, there to be introduced to wife and niece, so that general acquaintanceship with the family might prove a weapon in Mr. Clark’s hand, if necessary.

Reluctance was plainly discernible in Mr. Clark’s demeanour as he entered Mr. Poskett’s domicile, and, taken into the front room, he glanced about him with something of guilt. Relief at discovering the apartment to be void of feminine presence was evidenced by an unconscious exclamation of pious gratitude.

“Ah, ’ere she comes!” announced Mr. Poskett.

“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Clark. “I been thinking—”

He clutched at his host’s arm in some trepidation as the door opened and an elderly female of unaffectionate aspect entered.

“This,” said Mr. Poskett, “is my wife,” and explained the reason of Mr. Clark’s presence to that lady, while the seaman himself, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, smiled unconvincingly, and vaguely remarked that girls would be girls, and that there was no need to be too worried about it.

Before Mrs. Poskett could reply to these remarks, the latch of the front door clicked.

“Ah, ’ere’s Nancy at last,” observed Mr. Poskett.

“And—and that reminds me, I—I forgot something!” stammered Mr. Clark. “Appointment I made a week ago! I must be going—now—at once!”

“You sit down!” firmly ordered Mr. Poskett. “You ’ave set your ’and to the plough, and you must not look back. Besides, ’ow could you have made an appointment a week ago? You were at sea then, weren’t you?”

“Why, I wrote a letter, and—and—”

“But you could not post it at sea.”

“I put it in a bottle and threw it overboard,” gulped Mr. Clark, edging nearer the door. “See you some other time. I—”

He ceased abruptly at sight of the girl who had entered the room and was now standing by the door, a little surprised at this unusual incidence of a visitor.

“This is Mr. Samuel Clark, Nancy,” said Mr. Poskett, seizing the opportunity. “And ’e’s an old friend of Mr. Dobb’s, and one ’oo ’as a deep knowledge of the world and its pitfalls—”

“’Ere, steady!” murmured Mr. Clark.

“And ’oo, I feel sure,” continued Mr. Poskett, with a leathery smile at the other man, “will give you good counsel and guidance if ever the need for such should arise.”

Miss Nancy Poskett, clearly suspecting the nature of this tribute, bowed distantly to Mr. Clark, and sat down in a corner.

“’Ave you come straight ’ome from Wicklett & Sharp’s, Nancy!” asked Mrs. Poskett, mistrustfully.

“I came back by way of East Street, aunt.”

“Meet anyone you know?” inquired Mrs. Poskett.

“One or two people,” replied the girl, carelessly.

“And ’oo were they, pray?” demanded Mrs. Poskett, at once.

“Oh, no one you know, aunt,” replied Nancy, and began to fidget with her brooch.

“Why, you’re wearing a ring!” shrilled her aunt at that, and the girl quickly concealed her hand. “A new ring!” went on the elder lady in awesome tones. “And on your engagement finger!”

“Yes,” said Nancy, “that was the finger it was meant for.”

There was a scandalized little wait. Mr. and Mrs. Poskett shook their heads, muttering inchoately. Mr. Clark gazed upon the mutinous damsel with but thinly veiled admiration for her courage. Just as Mr. Poskett cleared his throat and drew a deep, long breath, thereby intimating that he had garnered a few fitting phrases for immediate use, the girl rose and strolled to the door.

“I’m just going upstairs to put on my other hat and my coat,” she mentioned, casually.

“You—you’re not going out again, Nancy?” quavered Mrs. Poskett, aghast. “Why, it’s a quarter to eight!”

“I want to run out and post a letter, aunt.”

“Dressing up to go and post a letter!” groaned Mrs. Poskett, sepulchrally.

“Mr. Clark will drop it in the post for you on his way back,” said Mr. Poskett.

“Thanks, but it’s rather special,” returned the girl; and passing out of the room, she closed the door quietly after her.

“There you are!” breathed Mrs. Poskett. “There’s a brazen hussy to deal with! She’s going out to meet _him_!”

“You follow ’er the moment she leaves,” Mr. Poskett directed Mr. Clark. “And don’t let ’er out of your sight.”

Miss Nancy, returning soon after, in smart outdoor toilet, shook Mr. Clark’s hand and bade him a quite disinterested farewell. A few moments later the front door closed behind her with a definite snap, and, a few moments later still, Mr. Clark was in the street, intent on following her.

She was already some score of yards away, but none the less an encouraging remark offered by her uncle from the doorstep to Mr. Clark on the pavement caught her ear. She glanced back, and then went on her way at slightly accelerated speed.

Thrice did the girl turn unexpected corners, and thrice did the portly Mr. Clark have to break into a clumsy trot before he brought her in view again. And then she continued unremittingly to the very end of a particularly long thoroughfare, and faithfully did the panting Mr. Clark tag along in her wake on the opposite side of the road.

Presently, Nancy came to a corner at the end of the thoroughfare, and here she stopped, gazing expectantly this way and that. Mr. Clark with a nimbleness surprising in one of his build, skipped into the doorway of a shop. The girl, suddenly resuming her course, passed swiftly round the corner out of sight. With a feeling that the climax of the chase was at hand, Mr. Clark darted from his lair and ambled after her. Breathlessly he rounded the corner, and here he narrowly averted collision with Miss Poskett, who was standing quite still beneath a street lamp.

“Er—er—good evening, miss!” stammered Mr. Clark. “I—I _thought_ it might be you! ’Ow—’ow do you do?”

“You’ve been following me!” she scornfully charged him.

“Oh, no!” he declared. “Just a—a cohincidence! I—I simply ’appened to be coming this way, and—and—”

“Fancy! And are you going along this road here on the right, too?”

“I am, miss.”

“Well, I’m _not_!”

“Then—then I’ll wish you good evening again,” he said, and wandered forlornly away.

Nancy sped off again. Mr. Clark, swinging round, once more followed the trail, but with greater caution.

The girl, turning and twisting among the huddled streets of the old seaport town, gave her exhausted pursuer an engrossed half-hour.

Then, again, she halted—exactly opposite her own dwelling. And Mr. Clark, tottering to a full-stop, fancied he heard a low, gleeful laugh between the ensuing opening and shutting of the Posketts’ front door.

* * * * *

It was a stiff and weary-eyed Mr. Clark who called to see Mr. Horace Dobb at his shop next morning. Mr. Dobb, when furnished with the narrative of the previous night’s events, merely smiled unsympathetically.

“Never mind!” he said. “It’ll all come right in the end. You just keep on, to show you’re in earnest. ’Ave you arranged with Captain Dutt to leave the ‘Jane Gladys’ to-day? Good! And got all the money owing to you? Better! Now you must go and sit and rest yourself in the ‘Green Dragon,’ opposite Wicklett & Sharp’s in the ’Igh Street. You’ll be able to see when she comes out for dinner then, and keep an eye on ’er again.”

Faithfully did Mr. Clark obey these instructions. Not only did he shadow Miss Poskett home in her dinner-hour, but he hung about the road till she emerged again, and then watched her back to her place of employment. But in the interval he was far from happy, and his only solace was to be found in the discovery that more than one householder spoke respectfully to him under the impression that he was so thrilling a thing as a detective in the local police force.

That same evening found him in grim ambush outside Messrs. Wicklett & Sharp’s place of business, and there he lurked till the blinds of the shop were lowered, and at last Miss Poskett came tripping out. After gazing round far more carefully than the sentinel realized, Nancy hurried away.

Sedulously did Mr. Clark follow her, rejoicing that he had had the foresight to don an easier pair of shoes this evening. But to-night the course was short. A couple of hundred yards were covered, and then the girl flitted into a big, official-looking edifice.

“The Registry Office!” ejaculated Mr. Clark. “No, it ain’t; it’s the Free Library!”

He passed into the interior of the building and proceeded to efface himself behind a newspaper-stand in a draughty, ill-lit corner.

Miss Poskett, seating herself at the table nearest the fire, selected a magazine. This, Mr. Clark felt sure, was but a ruse, for every time that the swing-door opened the girl raised her head expectantly, and then glanced up at the big clock before returning her attention to the magazine.

Half an hour passed—an hour. Mr. Clark, prevented from the solace of tobacco by imperative notices, found the time dragging most tediously. His legs had begun to ache with the strain of standing and he felt chilled, and savage; but he did not dare to risk discovery by moving to more comfortable quarters. Another thirty minutes crept by, and a new and exquisite agony had come to Mr. Clark, for he was thinking now of the many snug inns with which the town abounded, and picturing the enjoyment of Messrs. Tridge and Lock in some such paradise at that moment.

Another forty minutes lagged painfully past. The janitor of the library began a sonorous locking-up in adjacent apartments, and still Miss Poskett remained to divide her attention between the swing-door, the clock, and the magazine.

“Closing time, please!” pronounced the janitor, entering.

Miss Poskett, springing readily to her feet, quitted the edifice. Mr. Clark, one vast sensation of numb passion, followed more slowly after her.

Miss Poskett, looking neither to the right nor the left, walked briskly back to her abode; and again Mr. Clark fancied that he heard a gurgle of malicious satisfaction as the girl entered the Posketts’ household and closed the door after her.

So furious was Mr. Clark that late as was the hour, he stamped round to Fore Street and knocked at the door of Mr. Dobb’s little shop. The house was in darkness, but after Mr. Clark’s third thunderous assault on the panels, an upper window opened and the head of Mr. Dobb, crowned with so obsolete a thing as a nightcap, protruded in inquiry.

“Finished, me!” roared Mr. Clark, to this apparition.

“Don’t you be a silly old stoopid!” counselled Mr. Dobb. “You stick to your job like a man!”

“But it ain’t a man’s job!” declared Mr. Clark. “Sneaking about, watching gals, at my time of life! I’ll trouble you to ’and in my resignation for me to Mr. Poskett, because some’ow I don’t think it ’ud be safe for me to see ’im—safe for ’im, I mean!”

“You wait a bit,” directed Mr. Dobb. “I’ll come down to you.”

And this he did, unbolting the shop door and revealing himself in a chaste dressing-gown of crimson flannel. Dragging the fretful Mr. Clark into the back premises, he hospitably set out glasses and a bottle, and Mr. Clark’s snarls of annoyance died away into murmurs of faint protest.

“Look ’ere,” said Horace, seriously, “you take it from me that you’re doing very well. Better than you think. It don’t matter whether you catches ’er with the chap or not; the main point is that he knows by now that you’re in earnest.”

“But ’ow does ’e know?” queried Mr. Clark.

“She’s told ’im! She’s kept away from ’im on purpose to diddle you, but she’s let ’im know by a note what’s ’appened last night, and you can bet she’ll let ’im know what ’appened to-night.”

“’Ow do _you_ know?”

“Because,” was Mr. Dobb’s astonishing answer, “because I know ’oo the fellow is! I not only know ’im, but I know ’im well enough to be very friendly with ’im, and it was ’im what told me she’s sent ’im word.”

“But if you knows ’oo ’e is, why don’t you tell old Poskett and settle the affair?” asked Mr. Clark, very naturally.

“Because that ain’t in the programme,” replied Mr. Dobb. “‘Strictly business!’” he quoted, enigmatically. “Surely you ain’t forgot that?”

“Well, why don’t you tell _me_ ’oo ’e is, and let me tell old Poskett?”

“There is such a thing as digging up pertaters before they’re ready to be dug,” remarked Mr. Dobb, mysteriously.

“Well, anyway, ’ow did you find out ’oo the chap was?” asked Mr. Clark, with something akin to professional jealousy.

“Two or three days back,” related Mr. Dobb, “I ’ad a very ’andsome-looking overmantel mirror for sale ’ere. It was in the window, and it caught Miss Poskett’s eye. And she stepped in and admired it, and asked the price, and you could see she thought it was a bargain. But she went out again, trying to be off’and.”

“Well, is it a riddle, or are you supposed to be telling me something?” asked Mr. Clark, as his friend made a long pause.

“I thought you’d guess the rest, easy. First thing next morning in comes a certain young gent, and said ’e’d ’eard I’d got a overmantel for sale, and ’e bought it straight off, almost without looking at it. Ah, if only there was more lovers in the world, it ’ud be a happier place altogether!” stated Mr. Dobb. “For chaps in my line of business, anyway!”

“Oh, well, I shall be glad when it’s all over and done with, that I do assure you!” said Mr. Clark. “I reckon I owe old Poskett something for getting me to take on a job like this, and a grudge is a debt of honour to me, don’t forget!”

“I don’t mind what you do to ’im after it’s all over,” said Mr. Dobb. “In fact, I reckon to quarrel with ’im myself before very long. It won’t matter a bit, because I ’ave pumped ’im dry in the way of business already.”

“Well, I wish you’d tell me—” began Mr. Clark, wistfully.

“You wait! You see, Sam, you’re all right, but you ain’t clever; and if I was to tell you ’oo the chap is and what I’ve ’atched out, you’d try to be clever and ’elp me, and that ’ud spoil everything.”

And this was an attitude from which Mr. Dobb was not to be wooed by all the blandishments of Mr. Clark, so at last the stout sailorman, relinquished further effort, repaired to the modest lodging he had taken for himself in the town, and there retired to bed.

So soundly did he sleep as the result of the strain of detective work that it was already nearly noon when he was awakened next morning by the advent of a visitor in the form of Mr. Dobb.

“I was quite right,” announced Horace. “That gal’s sent another note to ’er young man about the way she tricked you last night. Very tickled by it, ’e was but, at the same time, ’e sees what a old nuisance you’re going to be to ’em when they wants to meet.”

“You’ve seen ’im?” asked Mr. Clark.

“I ’ave! I’ve been ’aving a long, confidential chat with ’im. But I ain’t come to talk about that now. I ’appen to know of a job what might suit you—a job as ferryman down at the ’arbour.”

“Just the one job in the world I’d really like!” cried Mr. Clark, enthusiastically. “Rowing across the river all day from a pub. on one side to a pub. on the other!”

“The pub. on this side is the ‘Flag and Pennant,’” said Horace. “The landlord there runs the ferry, and ’is ferryman is leaving to-morrow.”

“I’ll go up and ask for the job.”

“That ain’t the way to set about it—not in this case. You want to use the ’ouse for a few hours first, and then lead up to the job tactful-like. Tell the landlord about your present job, and ’ow you don’t like it, and so on, and come to the ferry gradual.”

Mr. Clark, bowing to the superior wisdom of Horace, spent the whole of the afternoon, after he had watched Miss Poskett from her work to her home and back again, in the bar-parlour of the “Flag and Pennant” and it was not till tea-time that he decided that he had acquired sufficient standing as a patron of the house to advance a little further in the matter of the ferry.

“There’s good jobs and bad jobs, ain’t there, sir?” he observed, rather irrelevantly, to the dapper young landlord. “I wish I could change my job. I got a rotten job at present.”

“Oh!” said the landlord, without much interest. “What’s the job?”.

“Watching a young gal—a artful, tricky young gal.”

“Watching her? Do you mean you are married to her?”

“’Eaven forbid! I’m watching ’er at ’er relations’ wish to find out ’oo she’s carrying-on with unbeknown to them.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it was a very pleasant job for a man like you,” observed the landlord, disdainfully.

“It ain’t! Far from it! Little did I think, when Poskett asked me to keep a eye on ’is niece—”

“Miss Poskett, eh?” exclaimed the landlord, with sudden interest. “And so you are the chap who’s trying to find out who’s dangling after Miss Poskett, are you? Why, it’s—”

He checked himself sharply. For a few moments he stood tapping his fingers on the counter and eyeing Mr. Clark.

“What’s Poskett going to do when he finds out?” he asked.

“Send ’im about ’is business pretty sharp!”

“Just the thing!” exclaimed the landlord.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Look here,” went on the other, in some excitement, “I don’t mind admitting to you that I’ve got more than half a mind to have a try after Miss Poskett myself. I wondered why she wouldn’t have anything to say to me until, a few days ago, I happened to see her with the chap she fancies. If Poskett got rid of him—”

“Hexactly, sir!” concurred Mr. Clark. “That ’ud be your chance, wouldn’t it?”

“It _would_!”

“Then tell me ’oo ’e is, and—”

“No; if Miss Poskett got to hear I was mixed up in it— But I’ll tell you what I _will_ do! Here, come to the window! See that cottage across the harbour—the one with the figurehead in the garden? Well, he lodges there. His name is Jones—William Jones. Here, come back!” cried the landlord, forcefully detaining Mr. Clark. “Don’t you understand that you’ve got to catch ’em together first? Now, he hasn’t been out lately, because he hasn’t been very well. But if you were to watch that cottage—”

“I’d catch ’im whenever ’e left, and if I followed ’im—”

“That’s it! He’s sure to be meeting her sooner or later. You’ll easily recognize him—he’s got a big black moustache, and he’s a tall, thin chap.”

“But suppose ’e left the ’ouse and didn’t cross the ’arbour, and I was stuck on _this_ side?” artfully suggested Mr. Clark.

“I have it!” cried the landlord of the “Flag and Pennant.” “Blessed if I don’t do you a good turn, since you’re going to do me one! You can take over my ferry-boat. Then you can row backwards and forwards all day, watching the place unsuspected. And if you see him leave and not cross the harbour, you can row over as quickly as you can and follow him. And if he does cross, why, he’s bound to come over in your ferry, and then you can always jump out after him and track him till he meets her, and then you can fetch old Poskett along to see ’em!”

“It certainly sounds a proper plan,” approved Mr. Clark. “But after I’ve fetched Poskett—do I lose the ferry job then?”

“No,” said the landlord, handsomely. “I’ll let you keep it on, on the usual terms. After all, some one’s got to do it, and it may as well be you, especially since you’ll have helped me a bit.”

Overjoyed at this facile arrangement, Mr. Clark celebrated his new engagement so thoroughly that he quite omitted to provide unwelcome escort for Miss Poskett that evening. Next morning he entered upon his new duties, and rowed back and forth across the estuary with ever a vigilant eye lifting towards the cottage with the figurehead in its garden.

But no one answering to the description of William Jones did he discern all day, and when at last business was over at a late hour, he went along to see Mr. Horace Dobb and tell him all that there was to be told.

“Ah, now you’re all right!” said Mr. Dobb, patronizingly. “So mind you do the job satisfactory, and keep your eyes well open.”

“I shall give Poskett notice at the end of the week,” said Mr. Clark. “Now I’m hindependent of ’im, I want to get shut of ’is nasty little job as soon as possible.”

“But you mustn’t,” pointed out Horace. “Far as I can see, the main reason why Lupcott, the landlord of the ‘Flag and Pennant,’ ’as given you the job of ferryman is that so you can get rid of this ’ere rival for ’im.”

“I forgot that,” admitted Mr. Clark. “Never mind, I’ll soon nab the pair of ’em now, and then I can turn over a new leaf.”

But, indeed, Mr. Clark had not succeeded in catching even a glimpse of Mr. William Jones by the next day, nor the next, nor the next after that. Confessing his failure rather apprehensively to his patron, Mr. Lupcott, he was relieved when that gentleman, bidding him cheer up, cited the precedent of Bruce’s spider.

A few more days passed. Mr. Clark, now well established in his new sphere of activity, was winning custom and popularity by the nice distinction of his manners and the careful choice of his vocabulary, and was almost forgetting the very existence of the secretive Mr. Jones, when one morning the affair of Miss Poskett’s love passage suddenly loomed large again before him.

It so chanced that Mr. Clark had just started from the further side of the river, when loud shouts for his immediate presence claimed his attention.

“Bit of a ’urry, seemingly,” commented Mr. Clark, and obligingly began to row back.

There were two male figures awaiting him. One of them was brandishing his arms and bellowing; the other, taking matters more calmly, leaned in repose against a post, smiling at his companion’s vehemence. The excitable gentleman was Mr. Poskett, the other was Mr. Horace Dobb.

“A nice thing! A nice thing!” raved Mr. Poskett, as the nose of the ferry-boat grounded and Mr. Clark stepped ashore. “You’re a fraud! A impostor! A broken reed! A foolish virgin!”

The bewildered Mr. Clark, gazing from this figure of wrath to the placid mien of Mr. Dobb, received a slow, significant wink from that gentleman.

“I’ve been betrayed!” shrilly declaimed Mr. Poskett. “I’ve been wounded in my tenderest feelings! While you’ve been pretendin’ to be so watchful and alert, my niece ’as slipped away and got married! She’s just sent me a telegram, telling me about it, and ’ow she was starting off on ’er ’oneymoon!”

“’As she—’as she married ’im, after all?” queried Mr. Clark, in a surprised tone that was not entirely devoid of approval.

“She ’as! She’s been meetin’ ’im regular the last few days, it seems, and—”

“Married that ’ere Jones, and I never so much as set eyes on ’im!” marvelled Mr. Clark. “There’s artfulness!”

Mr. Poskett, gasping for words, shook his head helplessly.

“It was Mr. Lupcott, of the ‘Flag and Pennant,’ she married, Sam,” said Mr. Dobb, softly.

“Ah, ’e told me this morning that ’e was going away for a few days, and ’e clapped me on the shoulder and laughed, and I wondered why!” cried Mr. Clark. “But—but that ’ere Jones—”

“There never was any Jones, Sam,” explained Mr. Dobb, in gentle accents. “Lupcott invented ’im simply to keep you fixed in one spot, so ’e could go on meeting Miss Poskett. Matter of fact, I invented ’im for Lupcott! It was Lupcott ’oo was after ’er all along, as I knew.”

“But—but—”

Mr. Dobb nodded significantly towards Mr. Poskett.

“Look ’ere!” readily cried Mr. Clark, advancing on that gentleman threateningly. “This ’ere slipway is private property, and I’m in charge of it. And I don’t want you ’anging about ’ere listening to gentlemen’s conversation! I don’t like the looks of you, me man. I never did, and I never shall, so clear out!”

“’Ear, ’ear!” murmured Horace, shamelessly.

“If you’ve got anything to say to me,” warned Mr. Clark, “I advise you not to say it! Get! See? Get!”

Mr. Poskett, noting the terrible earnestness of Mr. Clark’s visage, glanced wildly about him, and discovered how remote the slipway was from civilization. Yielding suddenly to panic, he turned and trotted away, followed by the heartless laughter of Mr. Dobb and certain blood-curdling threats from Mr. Clark.

“That’s settled ’im!” stated Mr. Dobb. “’E ain’t the sort to trouble you again.”

“And a good job too!” declared Mr. Clark. “It’s the first really comfortable minute I’ve spent since first I took ’is little job on.”

“Never mind, Sam, it served its purpose,” said Mr. Dobb. “Soon as ever ’e spoke to me about ’is niece, and as soon as ever I knew that Lupcott was in it, I began to look round for a chance. And when I learned Lupcott’s ferryman was leaving ’im, I saw the chance sticking out as plain as plain. Luckily I was friendly with all parties. It was me what put Lupcott up to the plan of giving you the ferry to look after to keep you from interfering; it was me what suggested you to Poskett for the job of watching ’is niece; and it was me, Sam, what advised Lupcott not to let you know ’ow things really stood, in case you might want to be too ’elpful. And I know what you are when you tries to be clever.”

“Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you,” murmured Mr. Clark.

“Put two and two neatly together, ’ave you, and found out ’oo the answer is?” bantered Mr. Dobb. “Ain’t I a wonder? All that ’ead work done by me, and you only ’ad to stand by and wait—and you didn’t even know you was standing by and waiting. So now, if you likes, you can take me into the ‘Flag and Pennant’ and stand me something to drink success to your new career.”

“Wait a bit,” said Mr. Clark, counting his available wealth. “Get in the boat, and let me take you across the river and back again. The fare’ll be tuppence. And then we can both ’ave a drink!”

_Episode Iii_ Circumstantial Evidence

Superlative virtues of construction and design, never before suspected, were boldly claimed for the “Jane Gladys” in the auctioneer’s announcement which advertised her imminent sale. So respect-compelling was the list of good qualities now stated to be embodied in the unlovely hulk of that ancient vessel that even the two members of her crew who lingered on in residence as caretakers felt that their social standing was enhanced by association with such a superior craft. In order to demonstrate their new-found dignity, they left unperformed as much menial work as possible, preferring to sun themselves on deck in more fitting and gentlemanly leisure.

Thus it was that Mr. Joseph Tridge was idly leaning against the side one morning, surveying the horizon with a certain bored restfulness, and Mr. Peter Lock was reclining on deck in triple enjoyment of pipe and newspaper and slippered ease, when a voice hailed the “Jane Gladys” from a small boat further out in the river.

In the boat was the venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, formerly the doyen of the “Jane Gladys’” crew, and now, by the grace of Fate and the artifice of man, the motive-power of the little ferry which plied across Shorehaven Harbour at its mouth.

“Why, ’ullo, Sam!” greeted Mr. Tridge, waking to extreme cordiality. “Just the chap I was ’oping to see! Tie up and come aboard!”

“Not me!” replied Mr. Clark, very definitely.

“Not just for a chat?” wheedled Mr. Tridge. “It’s a bit dull for us ’ere, you know, Sam.”

“I ain’t going to risk it,” replied Mr. Clark. “I only give you a friendly shout as I was passing, like. You ain’t going to cut my ’air again to-day, Joe, so you might just as well understand that at once. You cut it yesterday, and you cut it last Thursday, and you cut it last Toosday. I don’t mean to be unfriendly or un’elpful, Joe, but you’ve got to give it a rest to-day!”

“Well, I must practice on something!” protested Mr. Tridge.

“Practice on Peter Lock, then,” recommended Mr. Clark.

Mr. Lock rose and looked over the side. Mr. Lock’s hair, oiled and combed to a miracle of sleekness, glistened in the sun; Mr. Lock’s chin and cheeks, bizarrely ornamented with strips of sticking-plaster, presented an object-lesson in first aid to the injured.

“I’ve struck!” announced Mr. Lock. “I ain’t going to humour him no more. I’ve let ’im practise shaving on me till me face looks as if some one had been playing noughts-and-crosses on it in red ink, and I’ve let him shampoo and brilliantine my hair till I can’t hardly read for the smell of it.”

“’Orace told me to put in all the practice I could,” said Mr. Tridge, stoutly. “And I’m going to.”

“But what for?” queried Mr. Clark. “What for? That’s what I wants to know.”

“So do I!” admitted Mr. Tridge. “’Orace ’asn’t told me yet. All ’e’s told me to do is to train meself for ’air-dressing, and that’s what I’m doing. What ’Orace says is good enough for me!”

Mr. Clark nodded approval of such simple loyalty. He mentioned that even when Horace had been cook to the “Jane Gladys” he was always averse from premature revelation of the workings of his mind; and went on to say that now Horace was no longer Horace the cook, but had blossomed out into Mr. Horace Dobb, second-hand dealer, carrying on business in a little shop in Fore Street, Shorehaven, he cultivated an even greater reticence in matters of diplomacy.

“‘Learn a bit of ’air-dressing,’ says ’Orace to me,” narrated Mr. Tridge, “and I’m learning a bit of ’air-dressing according. ’Orace ’as got something in ’is mind, you can depend on that. And I take it a bit uncharitable of you, Sam, not to ’elp me and ’Orace. ’Ow can I practise ’air-dressing if I don’t get no ’air to dress?”

“Practise on the ship’s mop,” put forward Mr. Clark.

“I’ve done that,” said Mr. Tridge, with scorn for so obvious a suggestion. “I’ve propped that up and give it a ’air-cut over and over again, till it’s only a bare stump now. Yes, and I’ve clean-shaved the ship’s scrubbing-brush, too, to see how I’d get on with a really stiff beard. But you must ’ave living models to do any good. ’Ow else can you tell if you’re ’urting?”

“Oh, well,” yielded Mr. Clark, “just to keep your ’and in, I’ll let you shave the back of my neck if you like, only don’t forget that the back of me neck don’t leave off level with the top of my ears.”

He fastened his boat and went aboard his old home. Seating himself resignedly on a packing-case, he submitted to the ministrations of Mr. Tridge. So that Mr. Horace Dobb, appearing presently on the gang-plank, expressed commendation of the assiduity with which Mr. Tridge was seeking to acquire tonsorial skill.

“All the same, ’Orace,” remarked Mr. Tridge, “I should like to know what the idea is.”

“Only another day or two, Joe,” promised Mr. Dobb, “and then, if things pan out right, you’ll be cutting ’air in a little shop practically your own. ’Ow’s that, eh?”

“Well, I take it as very kind of you, ’Orace,” said Mr. Tridge, with gratitude.

“Then you takes it wrong,” retorted Mr. Dobb. “You know my motter, don’t you?”

“Yes, we all knows it,” put in Mr. Lock, a little hostilely. “It’s ‘Strictly Business!’ Saved you a pint or two in its time, hasn’t it, that motter?”

“It ’as,” confirmed Mr. Dobb, by no means abashed. “It is a jolly good motter, far as I’m concerned. And this ’air-dressing idea is strictly business. I’m working it for all our sakes, and mine most of all. When I’ve got Joe settled as a barber and found something for you, Peter, the four of us ought to work some good deals together, from my little place.”

“A ferryman, a barber, a—a something else, and a second-hand dealer,” catalogued Mr. Lock. “It ain’t a bad web to spread. Lots of rubbish gets sold because of rumours about them being vallyble.”

“Exackly!” concurred Mr. Dobb. “And barbers’ shops and ferry-boats is the place for gossip. And there’s lots of strangers visits Shore’aven during the year.”

“And so you’re going to start me in a barber’s shop!” remarked Mr. Tridge, with great satisfaction. “Will there be a cash-register?” he asked, as an interesting after-thought.

“No, _I_ ain’t going to start you, Joe,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “It’s a Mrs. Jackson what’s going to start you, only she don’t know it yet.”

“A widow!” divined Mr. Tridge.

“A old widow, and a bit of a pal of my missis’s,” supplemented Mr. Dobb.

“Ah, I guessed there was a catch somewhere!” sourly stated Mr. Tridge. “Well, I ain’t going to get married, see? I ain’t at all the marrying sort. I prefers to remain single, thank you. Besides which, I’ve got one somewhere, already.”

“That’s all right, Joe,” returned Mr. Dobb, soothingly. “I expect she’d turn up ’er eyes at you in ’oly ’orror in any case. She’s a pillar of temp’rance, Joe, and a anti-smoker and a anti-gambler, and all the rest of it.”

“No wonder she’s a widow!” softly commented Mr. Lock.

“And, anyway,” said Mr. Tridge, churlishly, “I don’t want no business dealings with a woman like _that_!”

“You won’t see ’er often, Joe,” returned Mr. Dobb. “She only comes into Shore’aven once a month or so, just to collect the rents of a few cottages she’s got. Comes in for the day, she does, settles ’er business, gets a cheap tea along of my missis, and back she goes ’ome, a good three miles away.”

“Well, where do I come in?” asked Mr. Tridge.

“You comes in at one hundred and twenty-one, ’Igh Street,” replied Mr. Dobb. “That belongs to ’er. It’s a little, tiny, squeezed-in shop what she owns. It’s a barber’s shop.”

“I see. And I’m to be the hassistant,” surmised Mr. Tridge.

“Hassistant? Why, it’s so small that if there was to be a hassistant there’d be no room left for a customer! No, Joe; you’re to run the ’ole show. The chap what’s there now is leaving soon, you see.”

Mr. Dobb, anticipating the further curiosity of Mr. Tridge, went on to explain that the present tenant was in occupation of the premises on profit-sharing terms with the landlady. The stock and fixtures had recently come into Mrs. Jackson’s possession in the course of business, subsequent to the temporary employment of a broker’s man.

And now Mrs. Jackson, loth to lose her interest in the barbering profession, designed to procure yet another hairdresser to fill the place, on the same terms of partnership, of the dispossessed tenant.

“Of course,” said Mr. Dobb, “I ain’t supposed to know much about it. I only know what she’s told my missis in gossip, and I must say my missis is a good ’un at asking a few simple questions over a cup of tea without appearing nosey over it.”

“Well, and what do I do now?” asked Mr. Tridge. “Go up and ask ’er for the job?”

“Bless you, no!” was Horace’s baffling response. “Why, she’s filled it already, far as she’s concerned.”

“That’s the back of my neck, Joe, when you’ve finished cutting rashers out of it,” came Mr. Clark’s mild reminder.

“Well, ’Orace shouldn’t go giving me shocks like that!” indignantly exclaimed Mr. Tridge. “’Ere ’ave I been spending a ’ole week learning ’air-dressing in all its branches, and now, just when I’m perfect, ’e breaks the noos to me in a roundabout way that I’ve wasted my time for nothing!”

“I said as far as _she_ was concerned, Joe,” remarked Mr. Dobb. “Not as far as _I_ was concerned. That’s a very different matter. You just carry on and wait a day or two. And you, Sam Clark, you tell your boss that you’re rather hexpecting to ’ave another attack of colic soon, and stand by to take horders from me at any minute.”

Refusing to shed further enlightenment at this juncture, Mr. Dobb turned and left the “Jane Gladys” with rather a consciously Napoleonic stride.

For the rest of that day Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock found engrossing employment in devising theories as to the exact nature of Mr. Dobb’s machinations. Mr. Lock was of opinion that Mr. Tridge would be called on to impersonate Mrs. Jackson’s new partner in the hairdressing business, though he admitted that he could not imagine how this was to be carried through to complete success. On the other hand, Mr. Tridge, displaying a truculent species of pessimism, obstinately inclined to the belief that yet a parson and a wedding-ring would be found to be lurking at the back of Mr. Dobb’s strategy.

And Mr. Samuel Clark, ever somewhat crude and confused in his ideas, plied his ferry all that afternoon, oblivious of his surroundings even to the point of returning thanks for a tip of a French halfpenny. The only thing his mind could dwell on was that, at some near date, the widowed Mrs. Jackson was to be lured by Horace into a hairdressing saloon and there relieved, by some pretext, of the money she had been collecting in rents. The morality of such a proceeding did not trouble the plump sailorman; he found sufficient extenuation in the thought that it was the job of the police to prevent such things.

But late that same evening, at the “Jolly Sailors,” Mr. Dobb exhibited himself in a more communicative mood. Assembling his former shipmates around him, he extended a strictly rationed hospitality towards them, and then, of his own free-will, reverted to the twin subjects of the hairdressing business and Mrs. Jackson.

“The old gal came in to tea quite unexpected to-day,” he said. “That’s three times in a little over a fortnight. ’Owever, I sold ’er a second-’and dish-cover, so she’s paid for more than she’s ate up to now. She sat a long time over ’er tea chatting to my missis. Of course it didn’t hinterest me, so I went out into the shop. Only I couldn’t ’elp ’earing a lot, because some-’ow I’d left the door open, and it would ’ave looked so rude to ’ave closed it deliberate between us.”

He leaned back and, with a smile of profound self-satisfaction, eyed each of his friends in turn.

“Well?” prompted Mr. Tridge.

“The new chap she’s got ’er eye on is arriving the day after to-morrow to see the place and fix up finally with ’er. Oh, she’s very took with ’im! She ain’t ever seen ’im yet, but ’is letters ’ave touched ’er ’eart proper. It seems ’e’s just the very sort of chap she’s been advertising for—a lifelong teetotaller, a nonsmoker, never bets nor swears, always punctual, steady, and methodical.”

“In short,” restively summarized Mr. Tridge, “just the sort of chap I _ain’t_! Seems to me I stands a fine chance against ’im with a silly old geezer like ’er!” he added, ungallantly. “’Owever, go on!”

“’E’s coming down from London by the hexpress. Well, now, supposing ’e didn’t harrive, or something went wrong and they failed to come to a hagreement? Why, the shop would be standing empty from next Saturday, and she’d be at ’er wits’ ends to find some one else! She’s spent pounds in hadvertising for a teetotal, non-smoking barber as it is. Well, up you goes to see ’er, Joe Tridge, gives _me_ as a reference, and gets the job temporary. And once you’re in, you ain’t the man you used to be if anything short of dynamite gets you out of that job again.”

“But why couldn’t you ’ave recommended me to start with?”

“I didn’t know in time. And, for another thing, she was so set on getting a pattern of virtue. But when she finds things ’ave gone wrong, and there’s no time to spare, unless she’s willing to lose money by it, she won’t be so partic’lar, and she’ll overlook some of your faults, Joe, if you keeps the rest of ’em dark.”

“You seem pretty sure things are going wrong,” said Mr. Tridge.

“I can feel it in me bones,” returned Mr. Dobb. “Anyway Mrs. Jackson’s coming in the day after to-morrow to meet this chap at one hundred and twenty-one, ’Igh Street. Now, I _may_ be at the station when ’e arrives, and pass the time of day with ’im.”

“I can ’ear the dawn breaking,” observed Mr. Tridge, humorously. “You’ll tell ’im there’s nothing doing, and say you were sent by ’er to meet ’im and tell ’im so. And she’ll think ’e never come?”

“Helementary, Joe,” criticized Mr. Dobb. “Most helementary! ’E’d write to ’er when ’e got back, and then the fat ’ud be out of the frying-pan and into the fire. No, I mean to fix it so that she’s finished with ’im for good and all two minutes after she’s first set eyes on ’im!”

“And ’ow do you do that?” asked Mr. Lock. “Mesmerism?”

“No, circumstantial hevidence,” returned Mr. Dobb, happily. “There’s more people comes a cropper over circumstantial hevidence than over the truth coming out by haccident, and that’s saying a lot!”

He glanced warily about him, and then raised his arms in a gesture inviting closer heed to his words. Four heads bent over the table; three pairs of ears listened attentively. From one pair of lips came a whispered fluency of instruction and explanation. Finally, Mr. Dobb sat back with simpering pride, and his three companions unanimously expressed their awed respect for his brain-powers.

Again Mr. Dobb bent forward to add sundry details, promising to instruct those selected for dramatic roles at a more private opportunity on the morrow.

Mr. Samuel Clark, flattered by having the star part assigned to him, promised that he would rehearse on every possible occasion during the following day. Some twenty-two hours later Mr. Dobb called at Mr. Clark’s lodgings to see whether he was fulfilling this promise, and Mr. Clark at once afforded him something in the nature of a dress rehearsal.

“Puffect!” declared Horace, with enthusiasm. “A born actor couldn’t do it better, especially when you rolls your eyes up like that. I see it was blowing a bit fresh when I come along just now, so there’ll be a nice little ground-swell off the ’arbour-mouth to-morrow. ’Ave you arranged to ’ave colic to-morrow, like I told you?”

“All fixed up; and I’ve got some one else to look after the ferry for the day, and I’ve borrowed a small boat, like what you said. And I shall be waiting where you told me all the morning.”

“That’s the idea!” approved Horace. “And now we’ll just go and see if Peter Lock remembers all he’s got to say, and then we’ll see if the clock in the ‘Jolly Sailors’ keeps good time.”

Mr. Horace Dobb was patrolling the platform of Shorehaven railway-station next morning when the express from London came to a standstill there.

Of the few passengers that thankfully alighted, the majority were sailormen. Several women and children made up a goodly share of the rest of the number. Of the half-dozen residue, five were gentlemen known to Mr. Dobb by sight or personally. The sixth was a complete stranger, and Mr. Dobb, with a pious expression of gratitude for this simplification of his task of identifying Mrs. Jackson’s expected visitor, at once approached him.

“Are you going straight back to the Town ’All, Mr. Binson?” asked Horace, innocently.

“I’m afraid you’re making an error,” was the reply. “My name is not Binson.”

“Mean to tell me you’re not Mr. Binson, our town-clerk of Shore’aven ’ere?” demanded Mr. Dobb, incredulously.

“No, I am not. I am a complete stranger to this town.”

“Well, well,” marvelled Mr. Dobb, “you are the exact image of Mr. Binson, that’s all I can say.”

“Indeed?” returned the other, with scant interest in the coincidence. “Well, as I say, I am a perfect stranger here. I should be glad, in fact, if you would tell me the nearest way to the High Street. I have a business appointment there.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Dobb, with equal listlessness. “Which end of ’Igh Street? It makes a difference ’ow you goes from ’ere, according to which end you want.”

“Number one hundred and twenty-one. It’s a barber’s shop.”

“I know it,” said Mr. Dobb. “Name of Bonner.”

“At present, yes,” conceded the other. “It really belongs to a lady, though—to Mrs. Jackson. Perhaps you know her?”

“’Eard of ’er, I fancy,” returned Mr. Dobb, cursorily. “Pity you got out at this station, though. Your nearest would ’ave been the station the other side of the river. ’Owever, you come along of me, and I’ll see you on the right road. Shall we just ’ave one gargle before we start?”

“Gargle?” asked the other one, in perplexity.

“Tonic,” elucidated Mr. Dobb. “Drink.”

“Thank you, no,” was the reply. “I am a lifelong abstainer from all alcoholic drinks.”

“Just as you like,” said Mr. Dobb, readily. “Well, come along with me, and I’ll take you down to the ferry and get you taken across the river, and you’ll soon be there.”

“I didn’t know there was another station. I suppose the ferry _is_ the shortest way? I’m not a good sailor, and—”

Mr. Dobb’s eyes glinted.

“Oh, you’ll be all right!” he declared, and led the other man by devious paths away from the neighbourhood of the High Street and down to the harbour. To avoid questions which might be thorny to answer, Mr. Dobb walked swiftly and a little in advance of his companion, who, evidently deeming Mr. Dobb something of a roisterous blade, seemed relieved by this arrangement. Arrived at the quay, Mr. Dobb perceived the lounging form of Mr. Samuel Clark, and led the stranger up to him.

“This gent wants you to row ’im over to near the ’Igh Street, ferryman,” said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, and be as quick over it as you can,” he added, holding Mr. Clark’s gaze; “because ’e says ’e’s not a very good sailor.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” promised Mr. Clark; “but there’s a pretty strong tide running, sir, don’t forget.”

“There’s no risk I suppose?” asked the visitor, smiling a little anxiously.

“Bless you, no, sir,” declared Mr. Clark, cosily. “You’ll be as safe as ’ouses with me!”

With a courteous exchange of compliments, Mr. Dobb parted from his new acquaintance. A minute later Mr. Clark had begun to convey his passenger across the river, and Mr. Dobb was returning homeward with the mien of one whose morning has been well spent.

“The current seems quite strong,” remarked the gentleman from London.

“It are,” agreed Mr. Clark, straining at his sculls. “The current’s always pretty strong ’ere when the tide’s running out. Like a mill-stream sometimes, and the worst of it is that you don’t know it till you get well out on it.”

“I hope we’ll land at the nearest point opposite.”

“We’ll _try_ to land there,” amended Mr. Clark, gravely. “Matter of fact, the tide’s stronger to-day than I’ve ever known it before.”

“We seem to be drifting further and further down the river,” observed the other, now clearly falling prey to nerves. “Do you think it would be better to turn round and go back?”

“Turn round, sir—with the tide running _out_?” asked Mr. Clark, in accents almost scandalized. “Why, we should be capsized for dead, certain sure, in less than no time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s plain you’re no sailor, to talk like that. No, we can’t turn back.”

“Well, perhaps if you were to—to keep the—the front of the boat pointed straighter for the bank opposite—”

“I can’t!” stated Mr. Clark. “The tide’s too strong. We must land as near as we can, that’s all. I never knoo such a tide!” he ended, pettishly.

“You—you don’t think there’s any chance of being carried out beyond that lighthouse there at the very end, do you?”

“I ’ope and pray not!” soberly returned Mr. Clark.

He bent to his sculls with the greatest determination. A more sophisticated passenger might have noticed that the ferryman was pulling far harder with one arm than the other. The present fare, however, was engrossed in observing more and more of the opposite bank slip by.

“I do believe we shall be carried right out to sea!” he said at last, with the utmost concern.

“Not if _I_ can ’elp it!” denied Mr. Clark, and gave a straining, spectacular display of oarsmanship.

“We _shall_ be carried out to sea!”

Mr. Clark, shipping his skulls with commendable neatness, stared owlishly at the passenger for a few moments, and then ejaculated:

“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” with intensity of feeling.

“What is it? Whatever is it?”

“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” repeated Mr. Clark. “It’s my ’eart!” he explained, hollowly, and made a fearsome rolling of his eyes. “I’ve strained it, or busted it, or something.”

“But—but we shall be capsized—drowned!”

“I couldn’t row another stroke just now, not to save my life,” groaned Mr. Clark. “And you mustn’t try to take the oars, not even if you know ’ow to manage ’em. You’d upset the boat if you tried to change places with me, and you’d upset it if you tried to row from where you’re sitting.”

His passenger, abandoning a half-formed intention, sat very still.

“Can’t we shout to the people ashore?” he asked, dismally, as the little boat swept on past the harbour lighthouse.

“They couldn’t ’ear you,” moaned Mr. Clark.

“I could wave to them!”

“And upset the boat?” asked Mr. Clark, faintly. “She’s very, very easy upset. The chap what owns this boat never tells ’er ’istory when ’e’s ’iring it out to visitors in the summer.”

“What can we _do_? What _can_ we do?”

“Do? Why, nothing, except ’ope. We must just let the old boat float out and trust to luck.”

“But—but—” protested the other, wildly.

“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” bellowed Mr. Clark, in accents of acute anguish, as the easiest way to foreclose vain conversation.

He sat back, groaning horribly, and rubbing various portions of his anatomy, a fearful glare in his eyes.

The other man, watching him miserably, took a firm grasp of the seat as the little craft began to pitch and dance over the turmoil of the harbour-bar.

“We—we—we—” murmured Mr. Clark, with difficulty.

“We what?” asked the other, eagerly.

“I dunno,” said Mr. Clark, blankly.

There was dire silence. The little boat drifted further and further out, till it was clear of the harbour, and here the scour of the tide carried it well away from the roadstead.

Mr. Clark, opening one eye, shrewdly surveyed the locality.

“Just—just remembered,” he said. “We’ve got a anchor ’ere in the locker—a anchor and any amount of cable. We’ll chuck it over, and we’ll ride ’ere, as easy as easy, till the tide turns.”

“Don’t you feel strong enough to row us back now?”

“’Ave a ’eart, sir!” begged Mr. Clark, reproachfully. “It ’ud pull my arms out of their sockets to row against this current. But we’ll be all right ’ere. Once I get the anchor overboard, like this, we’ll be as safe as safe.”

“All very well!” fulminated the passenger, recovering a little spirit when he noted that the anchor had checked further seaward flow. “But why—”

“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” interrupted Mr. Clark. “For ’eaven’s sake, sir, don’t go a-hagitating of me. When I ’ave attacks like this, I’m sometimes liable to fits, and if I ’ave a fit ’ere, over goes the boat, and it’s all up with both of us!”

“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” wailed the other, subsiding.

“I—I’m going to lie down in the bottom of the boat,” announced Mr. Clark, wanly. “And if I smokes a pipe that might do me good, by composing of my nerves.”

He kindled his pipe, and forthwith settled himself very comfortably in the bottom of the boat. For headrest, he had a pillow he fortunately happened to have brought with him. By a similar kindness of chance, he had also provided himself with a thick overcoat, and with this he now snugly covered himself.

Ensued a bleak period of human silence, accentuated by the lapping of the water round the boat, and the phantom-like scream of wheeling sea-birds. The passenger, sitting humped-up in an attitude of complete dejection, surveyed the prone Mr. Clark and subconsciously became aware of the gentle, rhythmic fall and rise of the anchored craft.

“Really, it’s most unfortunate!” he whined, at last. “Most unfor—”

He stopped abruptly; his expression was a blend of alarm and self-suspicion.

“Dear me!” he muttered. “Oh! I do hope—”

Mr. Clark, stirring, opened one eye sufficiently to see that the complexion of his companion had passed to a strange olive-green shade, and that he was holding his palm to his forehead. Mr. Clark closed his eye again with a warm glow of satisfaction.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Clark again glanced at his companion. That gentleman’s complexion was now some shades lighter, though still green of hue, and he was sitting with his arms hanging limply by his side. His expression suggested that he had no further interest in life.

“’Ow are you gettin’ on?” asked Mr. Clark.

The other man, turning a pair of glassy eyes on him, shook his head dolefully and groaned. Mr. Clark, settling down again in comfort, was callous enough to smile.

Another half-hour elapsed, with the stout ferryman taking life easily at the bottom of the boat, and with the passenger gaining inside information as to the treacherous nature of a small boat when anchored in deep waters. Then, for the third time, Mr. Clark appraised the state of his passenger and decided that the time for convalescence had come.

Heartily remarking that the rest had done him a world of good, he resumed his seat and began to scull towards the harbour with the greatest of ease. His passenger, drooping woefully in his place, evidenced no emotion whatever at this impending termination to his troubles.

In excellent style Mr. Clark regained the sanctuary of the harbour and drew near to the quay. Mr. Peter Lock, an alert sentinel there for some while past, was waiting to greet him.

“Oh, poor fellow!” sympathized Mr. Lock. “He _do_ look ill!”

“You needn’t trouble to feel sorry for ’im, Peter,” said Mr. Clark. “’E’s in that state ’e don’t know what’s ’appening, or whether it’s ’appening to ’im or somebody else. Got a bit of a ’eadache, ain’t you, sir?” he bawled at the passenger.

“Oh!” groaned the sufferer, making feeble gestures with his hands and showing the yellows of his eyes.

“Oh!” he moaned again, and would have collapsed had not Mr. Clark passed a supportive arm round him.

“There you are, Peter. How’s that?” said Mr. Clark, with something of a showman’s pride. “Give me a hand to get ’im out of the boat and up on to the quay. All O.K., I s’pose?” he added, enigmatically.

Mr. Lock nodded.

“She’s going to ’ave tea with ’Orace’s missis, and she’s there now. She’s been up to the station twice to see if a Mr. Briblett ’ad arrived, but there was no trace of ’im.”

“Briblett,” murmured the passenger, dazedly. “That’s my name. Don’t—oh, don’t bother me! I’m ill—_ill_!”

“’Orace ’as kept out of ’er way all the time, in case some one might ’ave seen ’im up at the station this morning,” whispered Mr. Lock. “She might begin to smell a rat before the bomb goes off, if she starts putting questions to ’im.”

With a certain inconsiderate vigour the two friends half-lifted, half-dragged Mr. Briblett from the boat and assisted him up the steps to the quay.

“A drop o’ brandy is the only thing to do this poor gent any good,” prescribed Mr. Lock, producing a flask.

The stranger, although in a comatose condition, proved true to his lifelong traditions, and feebly waved the stimulant aside.

“Oh, well,” said Mr. Lock, “if ’e won’t drink it, p’r’aps the _smell_ of it might do ’im good!”

Thus speaking, he delicately sprinkled Mr. Briblett’s shoulder with a few drops of the spirit, and then very fraternally shared the remainder with Mr. Clark.

“And now off we goes!” directed Mr. Lock, and, supported by the two sailormen, the cadaverous Mr. Briblett tottered forward on two swerving, unstable legs. Closed were Mr. Briblett’s eyes, and the expression on his face was one of pained indifference to all mundane affairs.

By quiet side-streets was Mr. Briblett conducted to the neighbourhood of the little shop in Fore Street. Rounding a corner, the trio at last reached that emporium. Mr. Lock remembered to knock Mr. Briblett’s hat off for him, retrieving it with sundry muddy adhesions, and replacing it on the sufferer’s head at a rakish angle.

Then the door of Mr. Dobb’s shop flew open, the three lurched over the threshold, and Mr. Dobb quickly flitted in after them from nowhere. A moment later Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock were exhaustedly mopping their foreheads, and their burden, unceremoniously dumped into a chair, was lolling back in his seat, too indisposed even for protest at his treatment.

“Good gracious, whatever—” began Horace’s spouse, appearing in vast surprise at the inner door.

Mr. Lock, perceiving a second female rising from a chair in the back parlour, began to speak loudly and rapidly.

“We’ve just found this chap lying ’elpless at the corner of the road,” he stated. “We brought ’im ’ere because ’e said ’e wanted to find a Mrs. Jackson, sir, and we thought that p’r’aps you might know the good lady. Though whether she’d care to admit to knowing him, I shouldn’t like to say, her being a most respectable lady, by all accounts.”

“’E must ’ave been drinking the ’ole of the day!” observed Mr. Clark, in tones of righteous contempt. “I see ’im myself go into the ‘Jolly Sailors,’ and the ‘Blue Lion,’ and the ‘Cutlass and Cannon’.”

“I see ’im myself this morning,” said Horace. “I see him come out of the station, and I thought ’e looked a pretty queer fish. ’E come straight out of the station and went into the ‘Railway Inn.’”

“I see ’im leave the ‘Flag and Pennant’ at dinner-time,” contributed Mr. Lock. “’E left there to go to the ‘Royal George’.”

“Brandy, too!” intoned Mr. Clark, sepulchrally. “You just bend down and sniff. If you can’t smell brandy, I’ll—”

Mr. Briblett, raising his head with extreme difficulty, partly opened his eyes.

“Where am I?” he demanded, weakly. “I’m—I’m not at all well! I feel ill—very ill!”

“So I should think!” concurred Mr. Lock. “And the language he was using!”

“Said ’e’d backed three winners out of five yesterday, and didn’t care if it snowed pink!” supplied Mr. Clark.

“Wanted us to ’ave a game of ’apenny nap with ’im on the steps of the Town Hall,” added Mr. Lock.

“Said ’e’d come down to see about a ’air-dressing business, but it could go to—but ’e wasn’t going to trouble!” stated Mr. Clark.

As one existing on a plane of complete isolation, the stricken Mr. Briblett rose unsteadily to his feet. Clutching at the back of his chair, he swayed delicately a while, and then sat down again.

“I—I’d like to go to sleep,” he announced. “I want to go to sleep! I want to lie down! Oh, I feel so queer! That boat, drifting out to sea—”

“Boat—sea!” cried Mr. Clark, readily. “There you are! Delirious, and no wonder! Raving—raving! What a ’orrible hexample for all right-minded men!”

There was a little wait. Then Mrs. Jackson, coming out of a sort of trance, pushed past her hostess and stepped through the doorway of the back parlour. For three long seconds she stared at Mr. Briblett, and then, drawing a deep breath, she shrilly began to take the predominant part in the conversation. . . .

Five minutes later Mr. Dobb, Mr. Clark, and Mr. Lock were standing some streets away, dazedly fanning their brows.

“’Ow the dooce was I to know?” whispered Mr. Dobb, brokenly. “’Ow the dooce was I to know the chap would be so punctual as to be too early for the hexpress and come straight along to see Mrs. Jackson at ’er ’ome?”

His hearers shook their heads in confession of inability to answer the question.

“And ’ow the dooce was I to know,” continued Mr. Dobb, bitterly, “that she’d asked this other chap to come down and ’elp ’er with ’er business affairs, now ’e’d got back to England after fifteen years in the Colonies, and never been to Shore’aven before to see ’er? ’Ow the dooce was I to know? . . . Why, I didn’t even know she’d _got_ a brother!”

_Episode Iv_ Black Cats Are Always Lucky

It had been a day thickly veined and marbled with emotions for the little group of men who, aforetime, had in some measure controlled the sea-going vagaries of that decrepit old barque, the “Jane Gladys.” For, that day, the “Jane Gladys” had ceased to be a ship dowered with an imposing collection of virtues perceptible only to the auctioneer, and had become but so much old wood and rusting iron to be exploited by the speculative marine-store dealer who hazarded the highest price for her unlovely bulk.

This distressful climax in the nautical career of the “Jane Gladys” was not allowed to go unwitnessed by those who had so long lived and thrived amid the sinister shadows of her ill-repute as a barque that was the natural home of venal duplicities. The erstwhile crew of the “Jane Gladys,” those established confederates in mercenary plot and counterplot, had rallied to watch the transfer of their stronghold into alien and unsympathetic ownership, and, in the untroubled throng about the auctioneer, they stood as figures thrust apart from their fellow-men by the stern arm of Tragedy.

Captain Peter Dutt was there, his countenance a very show-case of mournful reminiscence as he gazed upon his late command, although he had retired ashore on a comfortable pension, and had already taken to bragging about his extraordinary prowess as an amateur grower of vegetables. That venerable and corpulent amphibian, Mr. Samuel Clark, was there, too, having contrived to evade for a while his present duties as ferryman across Shorehaven Harbour in order to attend this dismal chapter in the history of the vessel upon which he had served for so many years. And Mr. Horace Dobb, who formerly graced the cook’s galley of the doomed ship, was also in attendance in the great glory of garb which was explained and justified by the fact that he had married a widow and a snug second-hand business at one fortunate sweep.

But, as may be inferred, the regrets of Captain Dutt, of Mr. Clark, and of Mr. Dobb were almost entirely retrospective, for their daily bread was assured. The future was firm ground for their feet to tread, and their woeful deportment had therefore merely a sentimental value. Far more earnest and practical was the grief at the passing of the “Jane Gladys” of the two remaining members of her old crew, Mr. Peter Lock and Mr. Joseph Tridge.

Despite the assiduity with which these two gentlemen had of late pointed out to the great god Luck ways by which he might help them, that fickle deity had proved himself singularly unresponsive. And this meant that neither Mr. Lock nor Mr. Tridge had any attractive prospects to solace them for the loss of their employment on the “Jane Gladys.”

By personal inquiry they had discovered that no master mariner was prepared to risk the morale of his crew by importing into the fo’c’sle anyone who had been even remotely connected with the “Jane Gladys,” nor was a task ashore obtainable when once they had mentioned the only references they could give.

True, Mr. Dobb had promised them his favour, but, so far, nothing had come of it save the abortive attempt to procure employment for Mr. Tridge as a hairdresser. Not that there was any question as to Mr. Dobb’s sincerity of purpose, for, in projecting philanthropies for his two unfortunate shipmates, he was largely considering his own interests. “Strictly Business!” was the self-chosen motto that controlled Mr. Dobb’s energies in every direction, and always there was present in his mind the idea that profitable disposal of stock from the shop in Fore Street might skilfully be accelerated by the placing of his old accomplices of the “Jane Gladys” in strategic situations about the town.

But, apart from securing Mr. Samuel Clark his present job, Mr. Dobb’s efforts had hitherto been negligible in result, and now, of those who mourned the end of the “Jane Gladys,” none mourned her with more genuine feeling or with a greater sense of personal bereavement than Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge, for others were only mourning for memories, while they were mourning a lost home.

Gradually, however, as the day had worn on, they had struggled with and overcome their melancholy, mounting, indeed in the end to a flippant hilarity which fitted but incongruously with the gravity of their prospects.

But this was not till the day was nearing its close. The early afternoon had been a space of sighs and doleful head-shakings, for, at the close of the sale, Captain Dutt had led his old subordinates into the “Turk’s Head,” and here they had all spoken so wistfully and reverently about the “Jane Gladys” that the landlady had wondered how one of them could have come back wearing a green and pink tie from a funeral.

Mr. Horace Dobb, not averse from exhibiting the opulence of his new sphere in life to his former skipper, competed with that worthy for the honour of being prime host to the party. It was a challenge which Captain Dutt’s pride forbade him to refuse, and so round after round of refreshment was served, till by degrees a brisker mood descended upon the company.

It was not till past tea-time that the party had begun to break up. Mr. Clark was the first to leave, having suddenly remembered that he had faithfully promised to return to the ferry at one o’clock sharp. And next Mr. Dobb went, pleading the calls of business, and purchasing a cigar at the bar as he left, with excellent effect. For Captain Dutt, after silently and disapprovingly considering such an action on an ex-cook’s part, at last stigmatized it as a kind of Socialism, and bought Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge a cigar apiece to re-establish his prestige.

Soon after, Captain Dutt reluctantly announced that he, too, must now depart, and Messrs. Tridge and Lock accompanied him to the nearest draper’s shop, where he sagely selected a bonnet to be presented to Mrs. Dutt the moment he got home. And when the skipper, already holding the hat-box before him in a propitiatory manner, had passed from their sight round a corner, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock looked hard and remindedly at each other, and then made search in their pockets.

As a result, the one party produced a shilling and five pennies, and the other party disclosed a florin and a halfpenny; frank and unabashed confession admitted these coins to be “change” which the skipper had forgotten to pick up amid the mental distractions of the afternoon.

Whereupon, congratulating themselves and each other on this presence of mind in face of opportunity, Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge had retired to the tap-room of the “Royal William,” and had there abundantly developed their policy of drowning dull care.

By now the night was well advanced, and a fevered, reckless brilliance was illuminating Mr. Lock’s personality, lighting up all those manifold polite accomplishments of which he was a master. Thus, he had entertained the company with a series of imitations of bird-calls, and performed clever feats of legerdemain with corks and pennies and hats.

Mr. Tridge was in complete eclipse. He had tried hard to be not ungenial, but his temperament was different from Mr. Lock’s, and every minute of revelry only found him more and more subdued and morose. He had struggled against this psychological handicap, even to the extent of exhibiting to the company four or five styles of dancing with which he was familiar, but so morose and forbidding was his countenance as he jigged and gyrated that none dared claim his attention by offering applause, so that when he sat down again it was amid complete and discouraging silence.

Mr. Lock, however, shone still more effulgently as the evening progressed. Knotting his handkerchief into semblance of a doll, he affected that it was a wife and that he was its husband, and built up on these premises a highly diverting ventriloquial monologue.

And, after that, he successfully introduced some farmyard mimicry, and then got well away with card tricks. Appreciative, and even enthusiastic, were Mr. Lock’s audience, and none was more enthusiastic or appreciative than the plump, fresh-faced little landlord of the “Royal William.” Not once, nor twice, but thrice, did he pay tribute to Mr. Lock’s powers in the medium most gratifying to that artist, and his flow of hospitality ceased only when a big and stern-visaged lady came presently and stood behind the bar at his side. And, thereafter, the licensee of the “Royal William” took, as it were, but a furtive and subsidiary interest in Mr. Lock’s entertainment; while the lady eyed the performance with a cold hostility which was inimical to true art.

And whether it was that Mr. Lock grew a little flustered under her malign regard, or whether it was that he sought to sting the landlord into revolt against domestic oppression, the fact remains that he began to intersperse his card tricks with humorous, but inflammatory, remarks bearing on the subject of domineering wives and too submissive husbands.

It is possible that the landlord of the “Royal William” derived amusement from these sallies. Certainly his eyes gleamed at each thrust, and more than once he turned away to conceal a grin, but he was too craven to exhibit open hilarity at Mr. Lock’s satires. The landlady, however, did not hesitate to betray her feelings in the matter, and thus it was that, at the tail of an amusing anecdote of domestic tyranny, Mr. Lock found himself confronted with a stern and acidulated request to sit down and keep quiet unless he wished to find himself in trouble.

Mr. Lock, a little nonplussed, glanced at the landlord to enlist his support. The landlord’s gaze was apologetic but unhelpful. Mr. Lock looked around among his admirers, but their demeanour had become absent and constrained. Mr. Lock turned and regarded Mr. Tridge; Mr. Tridge was wrapped in his own sable meditations. Pettishly, Mr. Lock flung down the pack of cards and sulked in a corner.

The landlady, having thus suppressed unwelcome propaganda, indulged in a tight-lipped smile of triumph, and began a rinsing of glasses. The hush deepened in the room, developing an atmosphere which brought Mr. Lock back to remembrance of his own insecure position in the world, and this was rendered still more discomforting by what followed. For an amiable gentleman in a check coat, after twice clearing his throat, sought to re-establish light conversation, and asked the landlord whether there was yet any news of Ted.

“I had a letter from him,” answered the landlord, coming out of a sort of thoughtful trance.

“Thanking you for all the kindnesses you’ve showed him, I lay,” hazarded the checkered gentleman.

“No,” returned the landlord, slowly. “’E only asked me to send on after him a pair of boots he’d left behind for mendin’.”

“Fancy bothering about boots!” marvelled the other. “If my uncle died and left _me_ a greengrocery shop—”

“And a nice little business, too, by all accounts,” struck in an individual in a mackintosh.

“Ay, by _his_ accounts,” agreed the landlord. “If half he said was true, he won’t have to do any more billiard-marking and odd-jobbing.”

“Not while the money lasts, at any rate,” said the man in the mackintosh. “Have you got anyone to take his place yet?”

The landlord, shaking his head, replied that he had not yet found a successor to Ted. Billiard-markers, he added, were scarce; people who desired employment as such were, as a rule, of one or two unsatisfactory classes, knowing either too little or too much.

Mr. Lock, assimilating this talk, lifted his eyes and peered as it were through the mists of his troubles. Here, obviously, was a vacancy going, and one which he was well qualified to fill, for his knowledge of the billiard table was neither elementary nor academic. A post as a marker and odd-job man at the “Royal William” appealed with equal force to his temperament and his talents. He could conceive of no form of employment more compatible with his desires. He almost groaned with mortification at the thought that he had allowed a _faux pas_ to ruin his chances of so delectable a situation.

None the less, he determined to make sure that his opportunity was indeed irrevocably lost, and, to that end, when the landlady had temporarily quitted the apartment, he sidled up to the host of the “Royal William,” and put a blunt inquiry to him.

“No chance whatever!” answered that worthy, regretfully shaking his head.

“You’ll find me just the sort of chap you want,” pleaded Mr. Lock.

“I’ve no doubt of it,” accepted the landlord. “If it was only me what had the say, you could start to-morrow. I don’t mind admitting straight to your face that I’ve took to you. You’ve got a civil, well-bred, amoosin’ way with you. You’d get on like a house afire with the gents in the billiard-room. But—”

He shook his head again, sighed, and left the ellipsis to carry its own implication.

“The missis, eh?” said Mr. Lock, sadly.

“The missis,” agreed the landlord.

“I suppose it ’ud be no good my trying to—”

“It ’ud be no good your trying anything!” interrupted the landlord, with conviction. “You can bet she’s got her knife into you, and you can bet nothing ’ud please her more than to twist it round like a corkscrew.”

“Well, if I had a job here,” contended Mr. Lock, “she’d have a lot more chances to twist it.”

“Look here, I’d give you the job if I dared, but I dare not, and that’s flat and honest,” said the landlord, earnestly. “I daren’t! See? That’s how it is—I daren’t! But here she comes; _you_ can ask her about it, if you like.”

The landlady, returning, bent a gaze of extreme displeasure on both Mr. Lock and her husband at finding them in commune. Mr. Lock, studying her countenance but the briefest while, turned away.

“I don’t think it matters,” he remarked.

Twenty minutes later the law’s exigency emptied the “Royal William.” The fresh air outside immediately had a restorative effect on Mr. Lock’s spirits, giving back to him his normal buoyancy, so that he shed his worries like a mantle, and became again his gay and debonair self. Mr. Tridge, however, had come to a slow and obstinate truculency of mood, and avowed an open antagonism to all mankind. And this divergency of outlook led to an unfortunate sequel, for, as they made their way back to the ship, which was only to continue as their home until the formalities of her sale had been completed, a black cat shot across their path, and Mr. Lock gleefully hailed its transit as a fortunate omen. “Black cats are always lucky!” declared Mr. Lock, with elation.

“You’re a liar!” churlishly declared Mr. Tridge.

“But they are!” insisted Mr. Lock.

“And I’ll prove you’re a liar!” cried Mr. Tridge, irately, and forthwith struck Mr. Lock a grevious blow on the right eye.

“’Ere—steady!” shouted Mr. Lock.

“’Oo are you giving orders to?” bellowed Mr. Tridge, in high passion, and straightway smote Mr. Lock’s left eye. “_Now_ do you think black cats are always lucky?”

Mr. Lock, sitting down on a convenient doorstep, pressed his palms to his eyes, too engrossed in a species of private astronomy to reply to Mr. Tridge’s question. Mr. Tridge, as one who had creditably sustained the truth of his assertions, cocked his head proudly and walked on. Mr. Lock, recovering after a while, followed him with marked caution, nor did he attempt reprisals. But this magnanimity was less because he knew that no one would be more surprised and apologetic on the morrow over the occurrence than Mr. Tridge, than because Mr. Tridge was altogether a larger and more powerful man than Mr. Lock.

Mr. Tridge, achieving the “Jane Gladys” in grim solitude, made his simple preparations for slumber, and lay down in his bunk with a sigh of weary content. He was fast asleep ere Mr. Lock ventured down to the fo’c’sle and wooed repose.

* * *

“’Strewth!” cried Mr. Tridge, in utter amazement, waking next morning.

Mr. Lock, who had just risen reluctantly to dress, turned an inquiring gaze on his shipmate.

“_Now_ what is it?” he asked, petulantly.

“’Strewth!” exclaimed Mr. Tridge again, staring incredulously at the polychromatic setting of Mr. Lock’s eyes. “Peter, you _must_ ’ave been a-going it last night!” he added, with intense conviction. “My word!”

“Me? No worse than you!” denied Mr. Lock.

“You must ’ave got to scrapping,” surmised Mr. Tridge. “Did you win or lose?”

“What do you mean?” sourly questioned Mr. Lock. “I never scrapped with no one. I was—I was imitating canaries. Canaries don’t scrap.”

“’Ow did you get them two awful big black eyes, then?” wonderingly queried Mr. Tridge.

“Black eyes?” murmured Mr. Lock, perplexed. “Black eyes?”

“Black and red and green and yaller and blue and purple and horange,” supplemented Mr. Tridge.

Mr. Lock crossed to the little mirror which hung on the shelf.

“So I ’ave!” he said, in blank surprise. “So I ’ave! I thought it was only the front part of my ’eadache!”

“Two real beauties!” declared Mr. Tridge. “You must ’ave got nasty over something, Peter. Why didn’t you leave it to me to do your scrapping for you, like we always does? I shouldn’t ’ave got ’it like that, you can bet!”

Mr. Lock, disturbed by the discovery, sat down on the edge of his bunk and shook his head, an action which caused him such discomfort that he lay down again.

“Can’t you remember ’ow it ’appened, Peter?” asked Mr. Tridge, with genuine sympathy. “If you can remember the chap _I’ll_ step along and square up with ’im for you,” he promised.

“I’ve been trying to remember,” said Mr. Lock. “I don’t think it was a scrap, though. I believe it was a hexaplosion somewhere. I seem to remember a lot of sparks.”

“Now I come to think of it, I seem to remember a fire or something,” murmured Mr. Tridge, after mental gropings. “Or was it something to do with the ’arbour-master?”

The twain lay silent, striving to recollect the cause of the alteration to Mr. Lock’s countenance, and they were still silently seeking to establish the origin of the disaster when Mr. Horace Dobb made his appearance in the fo’c’sle.

“Well, did you ’ave a good time last—” he began, and then broke off at sight of Mr. Lock’s contused features. “Ah, I see you did!” he ended, sapiently.

“_Both_ of ’em! That’s what I can’t understand,” mused Mr. Tridge. “_Both_ of ’em! ’E must ’ave been carrying something in his arms at the time, that’s the only way I can hexplain it.”

“’Ow did it ’appen, Peter?” asked Mr. Dobb, curiously.

“I can’t remember yet whether it was a man or the hact of providence,” confessed Mr. Lock. “I’ve got a headache and can’t think clear.”

“Pity,” commented Mr. Dobb. “I’ve come down to see you on a little matter of business, but if you ain’t equal to—”

“Talking business always clears my ’ead,” said Mr. Lock, eagerly. “Have you found me a job, then?”

“Found you a road leading to a job,” amended Mr. Dobb. “I can put you on it, but you must walk up it yourself. ’Ow do you like the hidea of going around with a milk-cart?”

“Not much,” frankly returned Mr. Lock.

“It’ll do you all right to go on with,” urged Mr. Dobb. “You’ve got to find something to do, ain’t you?”

“Peter Lock in a milk-cart!” marvelled Mr. Tridge. “A _milk_-cart! Don’t that just show you what a rum world this is?”

“I shan’t half get chaffed!” foretold Mr. Lock.

“You needn’t keep it longer than it takes you to find a better job,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “Meanwhile, you’ll be remaining in Shore’aven ’ere, and we shall all be in touch with each other, like what we’ve always planned on.”

“But a milk-cart!” protested Mr. Lock. “Now, if it ’ad been a wine and spirit shop—”

“Think of all the pretty gals you’ll be ’anding in cans to!” recommended Mr. Dobb. “Everything’s got its bright side.”

“Come to think of it, it ain’t such a bad job,” agreed Mr. Lock, brightening. “When do I start?”

“You’ve got to get the job first,” Mr. Dobb reminded him. “You’ll ’ave to play up for it very careful and polite and artful, and that’s why I thought it was a better chance for you than for Joe, there. There’s a old geezer, a Mrs. Golightly, what you’ll ’ave to be hextra special hattentive to. ’Er ’usband runs a grocery shop, and she’s going to start the dairy business as a side-line in a week or two. You play your cards right, and the job is yours for the asking. You see, you’re going to do the old geezer a favour before she knows what you’re after, and that’s always a big ’elp.”

Mr. Dobb paused and pointed impressively at Mr. Lock.

“You’re one of the finest amytoor animal doctors in England,” he told him.

“Ho, am I?” said Mr. Lock, casually. “First I’ve heard of it.”

“Same ’ere till a hour ago,” returned Mr. Dobb. “Only I ’appened to be talking with ’er, and one thing led to another, and then I see you just ’ad to be good at animal doctoring.”

“Why?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Why, because you’re going to cure ’er pet cat of fits for ’er.”

“Am I?” remarked Mr. Lock. “’Ow do I do that?”

“That’s for you to decide,” answered Mr. Dobb, easily. “It’ll be the beginning of your job in the milk line. It’s lucky she’s got a pet cat with fits, ain’t it? It’s a black cat, too. Black cats,” he stated, dogmatically, “are always lucky.”

At mention of these words a swift tremor coursed through Mr. Lock’s frame, and he sat up in his bunk, staring hard at Mr. Tridge, and gradually raising a rigid forearm to point accusingly at him. A similar start of surprise pulsed through Mr. Tridge, and after a long, horrified stare at Mr. Lock’s damaged optics, he suddenly turned on his mattress and guiltily drew his blankets over his head. Mr. Dobb, viewing this by-play in surprise, offered the theory that his friends were rehearsing for employment as kinema actors.

“I know who done it now!” cried Mr. Lock, bitterly. “And so does he! It was you talking about black cats, ’Orace, what done it!”

“I done what by talking about black cats?” demanded the mystified Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Lock irately made the situation clear to Mr. Dobb, who, as soon as he had regained composure, assumed the role of peacemaker so successfully that ere long Mr. Tridge was encouraged to emerge again from beneath his blankets and promise all manner of recompense to Mr. Lock at some future date when liberality should be more convenient. This understanding reached, Mr. Dobb returned to the object of his call.

“Soon as ever Mrs. Golightly told me about ’er cat ’aving fits,” said Mr. Dobb, “I thought at once of you, Peter. Remember that cat you cured of hiccups at Teignmouth?”

“I _said_ it was cured,” shamelessly corrected Mr. Lock. “I never went back to see once I’d got the money for it.”

“Anyway, you can _start_ to cure this old geezer’s cat for ’er, can’t you? You’ve got till next’ Saturday aboard this old boat, ’aven’t you? Well, suppose you get the cat and bring it ’ere, and keep it with you till then?”

“I see,” said Mr. Lock, readily. “Then I can take it back to ’er and say I’m sorry, but I’m leaving the town to find work elsewhere; and what a pity it is, seeing that the cat’s so much better already under my treatment.”

“That’s the hidea, Peter!” concurred Mr. Dobb. “The old gal is regularly wrapped up in that cat. She couldn’t make more fuss of it if she tried. And ’er ’usband is very fond of it, too. It’s more like a nursery than anything else when that cat comes into the room, and to ’ear ’em both sit round hencouraging it to eat its meals! It’s like a baby spending a day with its grandparents!”

“They’ll be very grateful if I can cure it of fits,” said Mr. Lock, thoughtfully; “and if I ’aven’t had time enough to do it—”

“They’ll pretty well offer you that job in the milk line without being asked, simply to keep you near your patient,” prophesied Mr. Dobb. “You dress yourself now and come along with me, and you’ll see what a simple, easy affair it is to a smart chap like you.”

“See?” said Mr. Lock severely to Mr. Tridge. “Black cats _are_ always lucky, after all!”

Half an hour later Mr. Lock, furnished with a very circumstantial story about a carriage accident to account for the spectacular state of his features, had the felicity of being introduced to Mrs. Golightly and her husband by Mr. Horace Dobb. The conventions of etiquette thus fulfilled, Mr. Dobb came straight to the point of the business in hand.

“Peter’s going to do you a favour and cure that ’ere cat of yours, ain’t you, Peter?” he observed.

“All being well, yes,” said Mr. Lock, modestly.

“If _you_ can’t cure it, no one can!” gushed Mr. Dobb. “You’re a wonder at curing animals, Peter, and you knows that’s true. Remember that dog you cured for the dook?”

“Which one?” asked Mr. Lock, carelessly.

“The—the blood’ound,” answered Mr. Dobb.

“I meant, which dook?” said Mr. Lock.

“The—the one what give you the gold watch and chain,” replied Mr. Dobb. “Show ’em to Mrs. Golightly, Peter; she’d like to see ’em.”

Mr. Lock’s hand made a movement towards his waistcoat, and then checked itself. “I forgot,” he said, with a smile. “I left it at the bank in London, along with all them other testimonials and medals I’ve got for animal doctoring. A chap what lives a travelling, seafaring life,” he explained to the lady, “needs to be careful of his property.”

“Yes, indeed,” she assented. “But I wonder you don’t give up the sea and settle down ashore.”

“So ’e means to one day,” struck in Mr. Dobb. “’E’s going to give up seafaring and animal-curing, ain’t you, Peter, and settle down quiet and peaceful ashore?”

“In a nice, quiet, respectable job, when I find one to suit me,” said Mr. Lock.

“I wonder if you’d—” began the lady, and then paused. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind seeing poor Jonathan now?”

Mr. Lock professing readiness to interview his prospective patient, both Mr. and Mrs. Golightly bustled from the room, making loud and endearing appeal to the stricken feline to come and be shown to the kind gentleman. Left alone, Mr. Lock and Mr. Dobb winked very pleasantly at each other.

“It’s as good as yours, that job is, Peter,” said Mr. Dobb. “She nearly offered it to you just now of ’er own accord. Did you ’ear ’er? You’ve made a ’it there, Peter, my boy! Keep it up!”

Mrs. Golightly, returning presently with an undistinguished-looking black cat in her arms, postponed consideration of its condition while she delivered an affectionate address on the manifold virtues of the animal. Mr. Lock, after gravely listening to the tale of so much excellence, plainly enhanced his favour with the good dame by remarking that the cat reminded him very much of a similar animal, the property of a countess, which he had cured of sunstroke in two days. He added that the countess’s gratitude was most touching and substantial.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Golightly. “I do ’ope you ain’t going to charge me very, very much for curing Jonathan! I ain’t a countess, not by no means.”

“I shouldn’t dream of charging you anything, ma’am,” replied Mr. Lock. “I’ve already took a great fancy to this cat, for one thing, and for another, I believe we all ought to do folks good turns whenever we get the chance.”

He now bent professionally over the cat, felt all the joints in its tail in a highly technical manner, and then gravely studied its eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Golightly, watching him, awaited his verdict in breathless suspense.

“He can and shall be cured,” said Mr. Lock. “If,” he added, “I can do it in the time.”

Within the hour the afflicted animal had taken up temporary residence on board the “Jane Gladys.” Sundry dainties which had, at Mr. Lock’s instruction, been secured for the patient’s diet served as an excellent dinner that day for two impecunious mariners. An indignant black cat found that “rest and quiet” were terms interpreted on the “Jane Gladys” by enforced seclusion in a sea-chest while the human occupants of the fo’c’sle enjoyed a protracted siesta after their meal. Indeed, it was only when a late tea had restored full energy to Mr. Lock that he recollected the needs of his patient. A foray in the galley was rewarded with the discovery of a red herring in a dark corner, and, armed with this booty, Mr. Lock prepared to inaugurate an altered course of dietetics for his patient.

Cautiously he raised the lid of the chest, but not cautiously enough; for the black cat, wearied of solitary confinement, slipped through the opening, and, easily dodging the convulsive clutch of Mr. Lock and the outstretched hands of the interested Mr. Tridge, it streaked out of the fo’c’sle and up on to the deck. Mr. Lock’s ill-timed recriminations of Mr. Tridge’s clumsiness caused a regrettable delay in pursuit, and when at last the two sailormen had reached the deck, the black cat had completely vanished in the darkness.

Frenzied and exhaustive search was made, only to be abandoned in the end when sundry sportive souls on the wharf took to jocund mimicry of the enticing calls made by Mr. Lock and his companion. Loudly did Mr. Lock bewail so inauspicious and swift a termination to his high hopes of the conduct of a milk-cart.

And moodily did he make his way to Fore Street, there to seek Mr. Dobb in his home, and tell him of this underhand trick which the cat had played upon one who had desired to deal benevolently by it.

“Well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk-carts,” pronounced Mr. Dobb, when his visitor began to sorrow over the wreck of his ambitions. “You’ve got to be up and doing—that’s all. As long as that cat don’t turn up at its old ’ome, you’ve always got a chance of finding it again somewhere.”

“Suppose we don’t find it, though?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Things might be worse even then,” said Mr. Dobb. “After all,” he hinted, “one black cat is very like another. And they can’t talk and give things away, can they?”

“No,” agreed Mr. Lock, immensely relieved. “And, besides, a cat that’s been taken away to be cured of fits ain’t hardly likely to look quite the same when it comes back again, is it?”

A nod of perfect understanding passed between these two keen tacticians, and Mr. Dobb promised that he would take care to call frequently at the residence of the Golightlys to ascertain whether Jonathan was controlled by homing instincts sufficiently serviceable to lead him back to his mistress. In that deplorable event, it was decided that action must depend upon the inspiration of the moment. In the meanwhile, Mr. Lock expressed his firm intention of securing another black cat from somewhere, and making its escape a matter of impossibility this time.

And thus it was that Mr. Lock, going wistfully about the environs of the harbour at a late hour that night at last managed to track down and capture an animal of the species and colour that he desired. He conveyed his protesting prisoner swiftly aboard the “Jane Gladys,” and there he extemporized for it a prison system from which not even a cat provided with a burglar’s kit and the ability to use it could have escaped.

For three days did Mr. Lock keep close watch and ward over his captive. Mr. Robb, on reconnoitring duty, was able to tell him that the vanished Jonathan had not yet put in an appearance at his home, and that the Golightlys were looking forward with the liveliest emotions of thankfulness to the moment which should restore to them their pet cured of its ailment by Mr. Lock’s veterinary skill.

“But s’pose,” put forward Mr. Tridge, one afternoon, in a pessimistic mood—“s’pose that that there first cat turns up at ’is old ’ome one day after you’ve got your other cat settled there. It’ll be awkward, won’t it?”

“Not a bit of it,” vaunted Mr. Lock. “I shall be working at the place by then, so it’s a ’undred to one that I shall catch sight of it first, and then there won’t be no fatted calf killed for the returned prodigal, you can bet. I shall just collar it and shove it in a sack and come down and have a look to see how the old harbour is getting on.”

“Ah, but s’pose you ain’t on the spot?” persisted Mr. Tridge. “What ’appens then?”

“Why, I shall swear it can’t be their beloved Jonathan, because ’e’d never ’ave left my sight while I ’ad ’im ’ere, so the new-comer must be a stray. Oh, I’ll manage them all right, don’t you fret!”

Next morning Mr. Lock arrayed himself in his best, shaved himself to a miracle of velvet smoothness, and brushed his hair with extraordinary interest, for he purposed now to restore the pseudo-Jonathan to its expectant master and mistress, and to bring diplomacy to bear upon the securing of the coveted post of chaperone to a milk-cart.

“Pity my eyes don’t lose a bit of their colour,” he observed, studying his reflection in the glass. “They look just as black as they did when we first ’ad that little dispute, Joe.”

“They look as if you might only ’ave got them last night,” agreed Mr. Tridge. “’Pon my soul, they makes me feel almost like a bad character myself, just to be talking to ’em.”

Mr. Lock, recognizing the futility of wishes, dropped the subject and took up the imprisoned cat. Slipping it into a hamper, he set off up town with it, and speedily came to the home of the Golightlys.

“’Ere’s you cat, ma’am,” he said to that lady, handing the animal over to her.

“My, that’s never our Jonathan!” cried the lady.

“Don’t he look well?” asked Mr. Lock, with enthusiasm. “I reckon he’s more than half cured by now.”

“But—but this is ever so much bigger than our dear old Jonathan,” objected the lady. “Bigger and—and stouter.”

“That’s the treatment and diet I give ’im,” explained Mr. Lock. “It always ’as that effect on my patients. It puts on weight and improves their coat wonderful. Ah, I never grudged him nothing! The best of everything he’s had, even though I’ve ’ad to go short myself sometimes.”

“Well, he certainly is wonderfully improved,” said the lady, gratefully. “I shouldn’t ’ardly have ever known ’im. And in that short time, too! ’Owever did you do it, young man?”

“Trade secret,” said Mr. Lock, promptly.

“He—he don’t seem to take much notice of me,” said the lady, a little disappointedly. “Before he went away, when I used to speak to him, ’e’d look back at me and mew like a Christian; but now ’e don’t even seem to like me ’olding ’im.”

“You’re a bit strange to ’im at present, that’s all,” Mr. Lock assured her. “’E’ll be loving and affectionate to you again very soon. And, as for ’is fits—well, I can take my solemn gospel oath that he ain’t even had a attempt at one all the time ’e’s been in my charge.”

“How splendid!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “I’m sure he looks heaps better. You must ’ave took good care of ’im.”

“I did,” Mr. Lock asserted. “Never let him out of my sight for a single moment. Brushed and combed him three times a day, fed him on tid-bits, give him his physic regular with an oyster after it to take the taste of it out of his mouth, and used to sit by ’is side at night till he fell off to sleep.”

“You have been good to him!” cried the lady, moved by such devotion. “I wish I could make it right with you, some’ow!”

“I done it because I took a fancy to the cat,” said Mr. Lock, “and I don’t want no reward. I shall miss the old chap, though,” he went on, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry to part with him, for his sake as well as my own. If he could only have had a bit longer under my care, he’d ’ave been cured for good and all of them fits. As it is, there’s