o-day, and I can't pay it--now."

Sir Archibald would not further humiliate the boy by remitting the
debt. There was no help for Archie in this crisis. Nobody knew it
better than Sir Archibald.

"I have no excuse, sir," said Archie, with his head half-defiantly
thrown back, "but I should like to explain."

Sir Archibald nodded.

"I meant to be back in time to realize on--well--on those things you
have given me--on the yacht and the boat and the pony," Archie went
on, finding a little difficulty with a lump of shame in his throat;
"but I missed the mail-boat at Ruddy Cove, and I----"

The pale little clerk once more put his sharp little face in at the
door.

"Judd," said Sir Archibald, sternly, "be good enough not to interrupt
me."

"But, sir----"

"Judd," Sir Archibald roared, "shut that door!"

The pale little clerk took his life in his hands, and, turning
infinitely paler, gasped:

"Skipper of the _Spot Cash_ to see you, sir."

"WHAT!" shouted Archie.

Judd had fled.

"Skipper--of--the--_Spot--Cash_!" Archie muttered stupidly.

Indeed, yes. The hearty, grinning, triumphant skipper of the _Spot
Cash_! And more, too, following sheepishly in his wake: no less than
the full complement of other members of the trading firm of Topsail,
Armstrong, Grimm & Company, even to Donald North, who was winking with
surprise, and Bagg, the cook, ex-gutter-snipe from London, who could
not wink at all from sheer amazement. And then--first thing of
all--Archie Armstrong and his father shook hands in quite another way.
Whereupon this same Archie Armstrong (while Sir Archibald fairly
bellowed with delighted laughter) fell upon Bill o' Burnt Bay, and
upon the crew of the _Spot Cash_, right down to Bagg (who had least to
lose), and beat the very breath out of their bodies in an hilarious
expression of joy.

* * * * *

"Dickerin'," Bill o' Burnt Bay explained, by and by.

"Dickering?" ejaculated Archie.

"Jus' simon-pure dickerin'," Bill o' Burnt Bay insisted, a bit
indignantly.

And then it all came out--how that the Jolly Harbour wreckers had come
aboard to reason; how that Bill o' Burnt Bay, with a gun in one hand,
was disposed to reason, and _did_ reason, and continued to reason,
until the Jolly Harbour folk began to laugh, and were in the end
persuaded to take a reasonable amount of merchandise from the depleted
shelves (the whole of it) in return for their help in float