nsincerity in his bluster, as if he wanted to hide
embarrassment in a cloud of his own vaporings, as a squid colors water
when it fears capture.

"After this you call me Cap'n Candage," he commanded. "After this
I'm Cap'n Candage on the high seas, and I propose to run my own
quarter-deck. And when I let a crowd of dudes traipse on board here to
peek and spy and grin and flirt with you, you'll have clamshells for
finger-nails. Now, my lady, I don't want any back talk!"

"But I am going to talk to you, father!"

"Remember that I'm a Candage, and back talk--"

"So am I a Candage--and I have just been ashamed of it!"

"I'm going to have discipline on my own quarterdeck."

"Back talk, quarter-deck discipline, calling you captain! Fol-de-rol and
fiddlesticks! I'm your own daughter and you're my father. And you have
brought us both to shame! There! I don't want to stay on this old hulk,
and I'm not going to stay. I am going home to Aunt Zilpah."

"I had made up my mind to let you go. My temper was mild and sweet till
those jeehoofered, gold-trimmed sons of a striped--"

"Father!"

"I had made up my mind to let you go. But I ain't going to give in to a
mutiny right before the face and eyes of my own crew."

Smut-nosed Dolph had arrived with the supper-dishes balanced in his arms
while he crawled over the deckload. He was listening with the utmost
interest.

"Your Aunt Zilpah has aided and abetted you in your flirting," raged the
captain. "My own sister, taking advantage of my being off to sea trying
to earn money--"

"Do you mean to insult everybody in this world, father? I shall go home,
I say. I'm miserable here."

"I'll see to it that you ain't off gamboling and galley-westing with
dudes!"

In spite of her spirit the girl was not able to bandy retort longer with
this hard-shelled mariner, whose weapon among his kind for years
had been a rude tongue. Shocked grief put an end to her poor little
rebellion. Tears came.

"You are giving these two men a budget to carry home and spread about
the village! Oh, father, you are wicked--wicked!" She put her hands to
her face, sobbed, and then ran away down into the gloomy cabin.

There was a long silence on the quarter-deck. Otie recovered his
marlinespike and began to pound the eye-bolt.

"Without presuming, preaching, or poking into things that ain't none of
my business, I want to say that I don't blame you one mite, cap'n," he
volunteered. "No matter what she sa