air from the water and such a vivid enjoyment in the sight of the
workaday world. He gazed with delight at the crowd of miscellaneous
shipping in the harbour and the bustling figures on the quay, only
pausing occasionally to answer anxious inquiries concerning his health
from seafaring men in tarry trousers, who had waylaid him with great
pains from a distance.

He reached his office at last, and, having acknowledged the respectful
greetings of Mr. Silk, passed into the private room, and celebrated his
return to work by at once arranging with his partner for a substantial
rise in the wages of that useful individual.

"My conscience is troubling me," he declared, as he hung up his hat and
gazed round the room with much relish.

"Silk is happy enough," said Hardy. "It is the best thing that could
have happened to him."

"I should like to raise everybody's wages," said the benevolent Mr.
Swann, as he seated himself at his desk. "Everything is like a holiday
to me after being cooped up in that bedroom; but the rest has done me a
lot of good, so Blaikie says. And now what is going to happen to you?"

[Illustration: "Pausing occasionally to answer anxious inquiries."]

Hardy shook his head.

"Strike while the iron is hot," said the ship-broker. "Go and see
Captain Nugent before he has got used to the situation. And you can give
him to understand, if you like (only be careful how you do it), that I
have got something in view which may suit his son. If you fail in this
affair after all I've done for you, I'll enter the lists myself."

The advice was good, but unnecessary, Mr. Hardy having already fixed on
that evening as a suitable opportunity to disclose to the captain the
nature of the efforts he had been making on his behalf. The success
which had attended them had put him into a highly optimistic mood, and he
set off for Equator Lodge with the confident feeling that he had, to say
the least of it, improved his footing there.

Captain Nugent, called away from his labours in the garden, greeted his
visitor in his customary short manner as he entered the room. "If you've
come to tell me about this marriage, I've heard of it," he said, bluntly.
"Murchison told me this afternoon."

"He didn't tell you how it was brought about, I suppose?" said Hardy.

The captain shook his head. "I didn't ask him," he said, with affected
indifference, and sat gazing out at the window as Hardy began his
narration. Two or th