the cove."

"If Ethel only wasn't so awfully polite," groaned Dick, "but would just
take the oars herself, I'd not mind a bit, for she can row beautifully;
but Maurice hasn't an idea how to manage a boat, though he's first rate
on land. We're all ready for your yarn, though, captain, as soon as
you've got your breath ready to begin to spin it."

Captain Dan smiled, half sadly. "It's no 'yarn' to-night, my lads. But,
Dick, what would you call a man who took what didn't belong to him?"

"Why, a thief, of course," answered the boy, promptly.

"'And what would you say if any one called your father's son a thief?"
pursued the old man.

"Tell him he lied!" exclaimed Dick, quickly, springing to his feet, and
confronting his questioner with flashing eyes. "What ever _do_ you mean,
sir, by such strange talk?"

"Sit down quietly again, and I'll tell you; for though I saw both you
and Theo helping yourselves to what didn't belong to you this afternoon,
yet I never could find it in my heart to call you thieves; for I suppose
you would say it was only 'taking,' and not 'stealing.'"

"What do you mean?" asked Theodore, who had been listening in silence,
but with a most puzzled face.

"Just this--that as I walked up the street I saw each of you take a nut
or so from the bag which stands in front of Mr. Baker's store."

"Oh," said Dick, drawing a long breath of relief, "that was all, was
it?"

"Why, that wasn't _stealing_, Captain Dan," broke in Theodore, eagerly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," observed their friend, dryly. "I didn't know
you'd paid for the nuts, or I'd not have mentioned the matter."

"Paid for them!" exclaimed both boys at once. "Of course we'd not paid
for them; but then that's not stealing, you know, for we only each took
one or two, and we were right there in open sight. It's a totally
different thing."

"I beg leave to differ entirely from you," answered the captain, in his
slow way. "But suppose there'd been a water-melon lying there on the
step, would either of you have carried it off without paying for it, or
eaten it there, either?"

"Of course not," said Dick, indignantly; but Theodore broke in,
abruptly, as he sprang up, his cheeks glowing with shame:

"I never thought of it so before! Why, it's just dreadful, Dick; for
Captain Dan is right--we were stealing, though we never meant it. Oh,
what would my mother say?" he added, with a choke in his voice.

"I don't see it in that light at all," pe