lking to me?" he stammered.
"Why--why, what do you mean?"

"I mean just that. You didn't think out this scheme all by yourself.
Somebody's been talkin' to you and puttin' you up to it. Haven't they?"

"Why--why, Grandfather, I--"

"Haven't they?"

"Why--Well, yes, someone has been talking to me, but the whole idea
isn't theirs. I WAS sorry for speaking to you as I did and sorry to
think of leaving you and grandmother. I--I was sitting up there in my
room and feeling blue and mean enough and--and--"

"And then Rachel came aboard and gave you your sailin' orders; eh?"

Albert gasped. "For heaven's sake how did you know that?" he demanded.
"She--Why, she must have told you, after all! But she said--"

"Hold on, boy, hold on!" Captain Lote chuckled quietly. "No," he said,
"Rachel didn't tell me; I guessed she was the one. And it didn't take
a Solomon in all his glory to guess it, neither. Labe Keeler's been
talkin' to ME, and when you come down here and began proposin' the same
scheme that I was just about headin' up to your room with to propose
to you, then--well, then the average whole-witted person wouldn't need
more'n one guess. It couldn't be Labe, 'cause he'd been whisperin' in MY
ear, so it must have been the other partner in the firm. That's all the
miracle there is to it."

Albert's brain struggled with the situation. "I see," he said, after a
moment. "She hinted that someone had been talking to you along the same
line. Yes, and she was so sure you would agree. I might have known it
was Laban."

"Um-hm, so you might. . . . Well, there have been times when if a man
had talked to me as Labe did to-night I'd have knocked him down, or told
him to go to--um--well, the tropics--told him to mind his own business,
at least. But Labe is Labe, and besides MY conscience was plaguin' me a
little mite, maybe . . . maybe."

The young man shook his head. "They must have talked it over, those two,
and agreed that one should talk to you and the other to me. By George, I
wonder they had the nerve. It wasn't their business, really."

"Not a darn bit."

"Yet--yet I--I'm awfully glad she said it to me. I--I needed it, I
guess."

"Maybe you did, son. . . . And--humph--well, maybe I needed it, too.
. . . Yes, I know that's consider'ble for me to say," he added dryly.

Albert was still thinking of Laban and Rachel.

"They're queer people," he mused. "When I first met them I thought
they were about the funniest pair I ev