youth. My first was
thirty years ago. This is my twenty-seventh."

"You must know all about ships, then. Tell me about the pilot."

"What about him? He's usually a gay old salt who hasn't been out of
sight of land for--"

"That isn't what I want to know. Does he take people back with him?"

"Hello! What's this? Don't want to back out already, do you?"

"No. It isn't I."

"Somebody want to go back? That's easily arranged."

"No. They don't want to go back. Not if they can help it. But could word
be got to the pilot to take any one off?"

"Oh, yes. If it were sent in time. A telegram to Quarantine would get
him, up to an hour or so after we cast off. What's the mystery, Sandy?"

"Tell you later. Thanks, ever so much."

"I'll have you put at my table," called the other after him, as he
descended the broad companionway.

So the pilot-boat scheme was feasible, then. If the unknown weeper's
father had prompt notice--from the disciple of Terpsichore, for
example--he might get word to the pilot and institute a search.
Meditating upon the appearance and behavior of the dock-dancer, the Tyro
decided that he'd go to any lengths to see the thing through just for
the pleasure of frustrating him.

"Though what on earth he wants to marry her for, _I_ don't see," he
thought. "She ought to marry an undertaker."

And he sat down to write his mother a pilot-boat letter, assuring her
that he had thus far survived the perils of the deep and had already
found a job as knight-errant to the homeliest and most lugubrious girl
on the seven seas. At the warning call for the closing of the mails he
hastened to the rendezvous on deck. She was there before him, still
muffled up, still swollen of feature, and still, as he indignantly put
it to himself, "blubbering."

Meantime there had reached the giant ship Clan Macgregor a message
signed by a name of such power that the whole structure officially
thrilled to it from top to bottom. The owner of the name demanded the
instant return, intact and in good order, C.O.D., of a valuable
daughter, preferably by pilot-boat, but, if necessary, by running the
ship aground and sending said daughter ashore in a breeches-buoy, or by
turning back and putting into dock again. In this assumption there was
perhaps some hyperbole. But it was obvious from the stir of officialdom
that the signer of the demand wanted his daughter very much and was
accustomed to having his wants respectfully carried out.