ng for me. It was her pleasure that I should dress for
dinner just as though company was to be present, and she trained me in
the niceties of life, and in bits of etiquette, for which I have often,
in later times, been very thankful. For although I found my amusement in
rough adventure and my companionship for the most part among seamen and
fishermen, it hurts no boy or man to be as well grounded in the tenets
of polite society as in writing, reading, and arithmetic!

The subject that was uppermost in my mind--that hazy mystery surrounding
my father's death--did not come up between us on this evening. Nor did
the unpleasant topic of the Downeses come to the fore. I am very, very
glad to remember that my mother looked her prettiest, that she gave me
the tenderest of kisses when she bade me goodnight early, and that we
parted very lovingly.

I went up to my room, but only to put on a warmer suit--a fishing suit
in fact. I shrugged myself into oilskin pants and jacket, too, in the
back shed, and exchanged my cap for a sou'wester. Then I sallied forth
through a pelting rain, with the gale whistling a sharp tune behind me,
and descended the hill toward the point off which the Wavecrest was
moored.

I had said nothing to anybody about my intention. I do not think that
any of the servants saw me go. I left my home without any particular
thought of the future, or any serious cogitation as to what would be the
result of my act.

Merely, I had put two and two together in my mind--and I would sleep
aboard the Wavecrest.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH AN EXPECTED COMEDY PROVES TO BE A TRAGEDY

I knew well enough that my cousin, Paul Downes, was too thoroughly
scared by my threat to have him arrested for assault, to openly make an
attack upon either my boat or myself. But his money could bribe such
fellows as I had seen him with that very day, to sink the Wavecrest,
or even to assault me in the dark.

It would be a joke on Paul--so I thought--if he or his friends should
sneak out to the sloop where she was moored, intending to do her some
harm, and find me there all ready for such a visitation. I chuckled to
myself while I wended my way to the shore, carrying a single oar with
me, and unlocked the padlock of the chain which fastened my rowboat to
the landing.

There was nobody about, and I pushed out and sculled over to the
Wavecrest without being interfered with. Had I not known so well just
where the sloop lay I decla