of harbour at nine
o'clock sharp in the morning!"

"Oh, I'll remember," replied Bob. "Where will she start from, Captain?"

"Why, from Coaling Point, at the further end of the Dockyard; so we'll
have to be under weigh half-an-hour earlier," cried the old sailor from
the doorstep. "You had better call at my place, as it is on the way.
Mind you're not later than 8:30 sharp, or she'll be off without you!"

"I'll be there in time, never fear," was Bob's response as the Captain
bade him "Good-night!" and stumped off homeward. "I'll be in time!"

Poor Rover!

He was doomed to another day of desertion; for, much to his surprise,
his young master, instead of taking him down to the sea as usual in the
morning, started off alone, and without his towels, too, which puzzled
Rover more than anything else.

Dogs have their feelings, similarly to other people; and so, his brown
eyes filled with tears as he watched Bob rushing out of the house, in a
terrible hurry lest he might keep the Captain waiting, or even, indeed,
be too late altogether--with never a word for him save a peremptory,
"Lie down, Rover; I can't take you with me; lie down, sir!"

It was really too bad of Bob!

In consequence of this unhandsome treatment, it may be likewise added,
Rover's tail, which he generally carried in a jaunty fashion, with the
trifle of a twist to one side, as became a dog of his degree and one
moving in the best canine society, now drooped down between his legs--of
a verity it almost touched the ground!

This made the deserted animal look such a picture of misery that, on
Nell's drawing her aunt's attention to him, the good lady of the house
not only spoke sympathising words unto him, to which the sad dog replied
by ever so feeble a wag of his drooping tail; but Mrs Gilmour also,
sanctioned, nay, even directed, his being entertained with a basin of
hot bread-and-milk served up on the best dining-room carpet, an event
unparalleled in the annals of "the Moorings!"

Bob meanwhile, with never a thought of Rover, was proceeding across the
Dockyard with the Captain, who hobbled painfully over the knobbly
paving-stones with which that national institution is ornamented,
anathematising at every step he took the rulers of the "Queen's Navee,"
who put him thus to unnecessary pain.

"I can't think how, in a Christian land, people's poor feet should be so
mercilessly disregarded!" he exclaimed, on giving his favourite corn an
extra pinch be