ai glanced at her with sharp suspicion. "So that's the latest
game, is it? He's been gettin' at you--a mere child like you!--and
sends you off here to work on my feelin's! . . . I thought better of
'Bias: upon my soul, I did."

"An' you'd better go on thinkin' better," retorted Fancy with spirit.
"Cap'n Hunken sent me? What next? . . . Why, he never spoke a word to
me!"

"Then I don't see--"

"Why I'm here? No, you don't; but you needn't take up with guesses o'
_that_ sort."

"I'm sorry if I mistook ye, missy."

"You ought to be. Mistook me?--O' course you did. And as for Cap'n
Hunken's sendin' me, he don't even know yet that he's lost his money:
and if he did he'd be too proud, as you ought to know."

"Lost his money?" echoed Cai. "What money?"

"Well, to start with, you don't suppose Mr Rogers got his stroke for
nothin'? 'Twas the news about the _Saltypool_ that bowled him out: an'
between you an' me, in a few days there's goin' to be a dreadful mess.
He always was a speckilator. The more money he made--and he made a lot,
back-along--the more he'd risk it: and the last year or two his luck has
been cruel. In the end, as he had to tell me--for I did all his
writin', except when he employed Peter Benny,--he rode to one anchor,
and that was the _Saltypool_. He ran her uninsured."

"Uninsured?" Cai gave a low whistle. "But all the same," said he,
"an' sorry as I am for Rogers, I don't see how that affects--"

"I'm a-breakin' it gently," said Fancy, not without a small air of
importance. "Cap'n Hunken had a small sum in the _Saltypool_--a hundred
pounds only."

"I wonder he had a penny. 'Tisn't like 'Bias to put anything into an
uninsured ship."

"Mr Rogers did it without consultin' him. Cap'n Hunken didn' know, and
_I_ didn' know, for the money didn' pass by cheque. Some time back in
last autumn--I've forgot the date, but the books'll tell it--the old man
handed me two hundred pound in notes, not tellin' me where they came
from, with orders to pay it into his account: which I took it straight
across to the bank--"

"Belay there a moment," interrupted Cai. "A moment since you mentioned
_one_ hundred."

"So I did, because we're talkin' of Cap'n Hunken. Two hundred there
were, and all in bank notes: but only one hundred belonged to _him_--and
I only found _that_ out the other day, when he heard that Mr Rogers had
put it into the _Saltypool_, and there was a row. As for the other--
Lawks, y