"He's
hardly the figure to meet his family as he is."

"Why didn't you bring him with us?" asked the mate. "How about a fit?"

"He wouldn't hear of it," said the skipper, pausing in deep
contemplation of three wax boys in a tailor's window. "He's an
independent sort of man; but if I buy the clothes and take 'em aboard he
can hardly refuse to wear 'em."

He led the way into the shop and asked to see some serge suits. At the
mate's instigation he asked to see some more. At the mate's further
instigation he asked whether that was all they had got, and being told
that it was, looked at them all over again. It is ever a difficult thing
to fit an absent man, but he and the mate tried on every jacket in the
hope of finding a golden mean, until the mate, dropping his lighted
cigar in the coat-sleeve of one, and not finding it as soon as the
tailor could have desired, the latter lost all patience and insisted
upon their taking that one.

"It's all right," said the mate, as they left the shop with the parcel;
"it's only the lining. I'd fixed my mind on that one, too, from the
first."

"Well, why didn't you say so, then?" said the skipper.

"Got it cheaper," said the mate, with a wink. "I'd bet you, if it could
only be known, if we'd been suited at first he'd ha' wanted ten bob more
for it."

It was quite dark by now, and after buying a cap and one or two other
small articles, the mate led the way into a tavern for another drink.

"There's no hurry," he said, putting his share of bundles on the table
with some relief. "What's your poison this time, cap'n?"

CHAPTER XII.

In less rapid times, before the invention of the electric telegraph and
other scientific luxuries, Captain Gething would have remained quietly
on board the _Seamew_, and been delivered to his expectant family
without any further trouble. As it was, the message in which Captain
Wilson took such pride, reached Mrs. Gething just as Mr. Glover--who had
been sitting in her parlor all the afternoon, listening as patiently as
he could to her somewhat uninteresting conversation--was on the point of
departure. The effect on him was hardly less marked than on his hostess,
and he went on his way to the railway station in a condition in which
rage and jealousy strove for the mastery. All the way to town he
pondered over ways and means to wrest from his rival the prize which he
had won, and by the time the train had reached Fenchurch Street he had
hatched as