sheets, Jack; and pillers?"

The mate sat on the table, and, grasping his chin, pondered. Then as his
gaze fell upon the pretty, indignant face of the passenger, he lost the
thread of his ideas.

"She'll have to have some o' my things for the present," said the
skipper.

"Why not," said the mate, looking up again--"why not let her have your
state-room?"

"'Cos I want it myself," replied the other calmly.

The mate blushed for him, and, the girl leaving them to arrange matters
as they pleased, the two men, by borrowing here and contriving there,
made up the bunk. The girl was standing by the galley when they went on
deck again, an object of curious and respectful admiration to the crew,
who had come on board in the meantime. She stayed on deck until the
air began to blow fresher in the wider reaches, and then, with a brief
good-night to her father, retired below.

"She made up her mind to come with us rather suddenly, didn't she?"
inquired the mate after she had gone.

"She didn't make up her mind at all," said the skipper; "we did it for
her, me an' the missus. It's a plan on our part."

"Wants strengthening?" said the mate suggestively.

"Well, the fact is," said the skipper, "it's like this, Jack; there's a
friend o' mine, a provision dealer in a large way o' business, wants
to marry my girl, and me an' the missus want him to marry her, so, o'
course, she wants to marry someone else. Me an' 'er mother we put our
'eads together and decided for her to come away. When she's at 'ome,
instead o' being out with Towson, direckly her mother's back's turned
she's out with that young sprig of a clerk."

"Nice-looking young feller, I s'pose?" said the mate somewhat anxiously.

"Not a bit of it," said the other firmly. "Looks as though he had never
had a good meal in his life. Now my friend Towson, he's all right; he's
a man of about my own figger."

"She'll marry the clerk," said the mate, with conviction.

"I'll bet you she don't," said the skipper. "I'm an artful man, Jack,
an' I, generally speaking, get my own way. I couldn't live with my
missus peaceable if it wasn't for management."

The mate smiled safely in the darkness, the skipper's management
consisting chiefly of slavish obedience.

"I've got a cabinet fortygraph of him for the cabin mantel-piece, Jack,"
continued the wily father. "He gave it to me o' purpose. She'll see that
when she won't see the clerk, an' by-and-bye she'll fall into our way of