which Captain Gething, after a short struggle with
the traditions of ship masters, extended, and shook it vigorously.
Having once started, he shook hands all round, winding up with the
reluctant Henry.

"Why, I've seen this boy before," he said, starting. "Had a chat with
him yesterday. That's what brought me down here to-day, to see whether I
couldn't find him again."

"Well I'm hanged!" said the astonished skipper. "He's as sharp as
needles as a rule. What were you doing with your eyes, Henry?"

In an agony of mortification and rage, as he saw the joy depicted on
the faces of the crew, the boy let the question pass. The cook, at the
skipper's invitation, followed him below, his reappearance being the
signal for anxious inquiries on the part of his friends. He answered
them by slapping his pocket, and then thrusting his hand in produced
five gold pieces. At first it was all congratulations, then Sam, after a
short, hard, cough, struck a jarring note.

"Don't you wish now as you'd joined the syndikit, Dick?" he asked
boldly.

"_Wot?_" said the cook, hastily replacing the coins.

"I arst 'im whether he was sorry 'e 'adn't joined us," said Sam, trying
to speak calmly.

The cook threw out his hand and looked round appealingly to the
landscape to bear witness to this appalling attempt at brigandage.

"You needn't look like that," said Sam. "Two pun ten's wot I want of
you, an' I'll take it afore you lose it."

Then the cook found words, and with Dick and Henry for audience made an
impassioned speech in defence of vested interests and the sacred rights
of property. Never in his life had he been so fluent or so inventive,
and when he wound up a noble passage on the rights of the individual, in
which he alluded to Sam as a fat sharper, he felt that his case was won.

"Two pun ten," said Sam, glowering at him.

The cook, moistening his lips with his tongue, resumed his discourse.

"Two pun ten," said Sam again; "an' I don't know what you're goin' to do
with your half, but I'm goin' to give ten bob to Dick."

"Why don't you give the man his money?" said Dick warmly.

"Becos the syndikit 'ad all fell through," said the cook. "The syndikit
was only a syndikit when we was both looking for 'im together. If the
syndikit--"

"That's enough about 'em," said Dick impatiently; "give the man 'is
money. Everybody knows you was goin' shares. I'm ashamed of you, cook, I
wouldn't have thought it of you."

It ended in simp