be
routine now, and his last words were to buy all the books and papers we
could lay our hands on, and not forget Sarah's list of stores she was
out of. Bless my soul! he was always mindful of them things, and it was
always _carte blanche_ in the trade room for anything she fancied.

Well, we climbed aboard, and they told us she was the Sydney pilot boat
_Minnie_, under charter to two gentlemen aboard who had an option on one
of Arundel's guano islands. They had struck a leak in their main water
tank, and were in for repairs and filling up fresh.

Tom and me got more of a welcome than seemed quite right, captains
usually being shortish with traders till the gaskets are on; but in this
case it was all so damn friendly that I nudged Tom and Tom nudged me. We
all trooped below to have a drink in the cabin, and the two guano
gentlemen were introduced to us, and likewise another they called their
bookkeeper. All three of them were hulking big men, very breezy and well
spoken, with more the manner of recruiting sergeants soft-sawdering you
to enlist than the ways of people high up in business. Mr. Phelps, who
took the lead, did several things to make me chew on, and he shivered
over his "h's" like he had been brought up originally without any. He
was so genial, that if you had any money in your pocket you would have
held on tight to it, and taken the first opportunity to get out. And his
big hearty laugh was altogether too ready and his manners too free, and
when he clapped me on the back I felt glad to think Old Dibs was tight
in his attic, and his tree in good running order.

"Very little company hereabouts?" he asked, filling up our glasses for
the second round.

"Nothing but us two," says Tom.

"My wife's father is somewhere down this way," volunteered Mr. Phelps.

"You don't say!" says I, nudging Tom again under the cuddy table.

"A fine old gent," went on Mr. Phelps, "but he met misfortunes in the
produce commission business, and had to get out very quiet."

"Too bad!" said I.

"It grieves my wife not to know where he is," continued Mr. Phelps, "she
being greatly attached to her father, and him disappearing like that;
and she told me not to grudge the matter of fifty pounds to find him."

"There's a lot of room in the South Seas to lose a produce commission
merchant in," says I.

"Here's a likeness of him," says Mr. Phelps, taking a photograph out of
his pocket, while four pairs of eyes settled on Tom and me