ack, halting and
cocking down an eye upon this queer urchin.

"Well, there's a goodish bit against it, you'll allow. You saw what
we're like at home." He looked up at Parson Jack frankly enough, but
into his speech there crept a strange embarrassment, too old for his
years. "I mean, you saw enough without my telling you; and I mustn't
give the show away."

"No, to be sure," assented Parson Jack. "Dick, you've the makings of a
good fellow," he added musingly.

But the boy's eyes had wandered to the broad sheet of water below.
"Crikey, there she goes!" he cried, and jerked his arm towards an
unwieldy battle-ship nosing her way out of the Hamoaze, her low bows
tracing a thin line of white. For half a minute they stood watching
her.

"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack.

"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do
I, to _that_ extent. It's tempting Providence."

"In what way?"

"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same."

"What's her name, I wonder?"

"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old _Devastation?_ Why, it's
fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear
tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they
won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days.
Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of
expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around
the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass.

"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?"

"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it,
but it--it hurts."

Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the
street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is
more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and
stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was
now the Major's turn to echo Dick.

"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his
brother, too--in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a
soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher--
result of hard work and plain living, no doubt."

His musings at this point grew involved, and he frowned. "Says he knew
nothing of Lionel's affairs--offers to show me all the letters to prove
it; but this behaviour of his is proof enough. Deuced handsome
beh