mouth and eyed him inquiringly.

"Less to lose," explained Mr. Tredgold, with a scarcely perceptible
glance at the captain. "Look at the dangers you'd be dragging your craft
into, Chalk; there would be no satisfying you with a quiet cruise in the
Mediterranean."

"I shouldn't run into unnecessary danger," said Mr. Chalk, seriously.
"I'm a married man, and there's my wife to think of. What would become
of her if anything happened to me?"

"Why, you've got plenty of money to leave, haven't you?" inquired Mr.
Tredgold.

"I was thinking of her losing me," replied Mr. Chalk, with a touch of
acerbity.

"Oh, I didn't think of that," said the other. "Yes, to be sure."

"Captain Bowers was telling me the other day of a woman who wore widow's
weeds for thirty-five years," said Mr. Chalk, impressively. "And all the
time her husband was married again and got a big family in Australia.
There's nothing in the world so faithful as a woman's heart."

"Well, if you're lost on a cruise, I shall know where to look for you,"
said Mr. Tredgold. "But I don't think the captain ought to put such
ideas into your head."

Mr. Chalk looked bewildered. Then he scratched his left whisker with the
stem of his churchwarden pipe and looked severely over at Mr. Tredgold.

"I don't think you ought to talk that way before ladies," he said,
primly. "Of course, I know you're only in joke, but there's some people
can't see jokes as quick as others and they might get a wrong idea of
you."

"What part did you think of going to for your cruise?" interposed Captain
Bowers.

"There's nothing settled yet," said Mr. Chalk; "it's just an idea, that's
all. I was talking to your father the other day," he added, turning to
Mr. Tredgold; "just sounding him, so to speak."

"You take him," said that dutiful son, briskly. "It would do him a world
of good; me, too."

"He said he couldn't afford either the time or the money," said Mr.
Chalk. "The thing to do would be to combine business with pleasure--to
take a yacht and find a sunken galleon loaded with gold pieces. I've
heard of such things being done."

"I've heard of it," said the captain, nodding.

"Bottom of the ocean must be paved with them in places," said Mr.
Tredgold, rising, and following Miss Drewitt, who had gone into the
garden to plant seeds.

Mr. Chalk refilled his pipe and, accepting a match from the captain,
smoked slowly. His gaze was fixed on the window, but instead of
D