" I ventured. She gave me a long, whimsical
smile--once more her father's daughter.

"That, I'm afraid, was the trouble," she answered; "for, as I laid my
money down on the counter, I suddenly noticed that there was a person at
the back of the store ..."

"A person?" I interrupted.

"Yes! suppose we say 'a pock-marked person'; was it you?"

"What a memory you have for details," I parried, "and then?"

"Well! I took my change and managed to whisper a word to Sweeney--a good
friend, remember--and came out. I took a short cut back, but the
'person' that had stood in the back of the store seemed to know the way
almost better than I--so well that he had got ahead of me. He was
walking quietly this way, and so slowly that I had at last to overtake
him. He said nothing, just watched me, as if interested in the way I was
going--but, I'm ashamed to say, he rather frightened me! And here I am."

"Do you really think he saw the--doubloon--like that other 'person'?" I
asked.

"There's no doubt of it."

"Well, then," I said, "let's hurry home, and talk it over with the
'King.'"

The "King," as I had realised, was a practical "romantic" and at once
took the matter seriously, leaving--as might have surprised some of
those who had only heard him talk--his conversational fantasies on the
theme to come later.

Calypso, however, had the first word.

"I always told you, Dad," she said;--and the word "Dad" on the lips of
that big statuesque girl--who always seemed ready to take that inspired
framework of rags and bones and talking music into her protecting
arms--seemed the quaintest of paradoxes--, "I always told you, Dad, what
would happen, with your fairy-tales of the doubloons."

"Quite true, my dear," he answered, "but isn't a fairy-tale worth paying
for?--worth a little trouble? And remember, if you will allow me, two
things about fairy-tales: there must always be some evil fairy in them,
some dragon or such like; and there is always--a happy ending. Now the
dragon enters at last--in the form of Tobias; and we should be happy on
that very account. It shows that the race of dragons is not, as I
feared, extinct. And as for the happy ending, we will arrange it, after
lunch--for which, by the way, you are somewhat late."

After lunch, the "King" resumed, but in a brief and entirely practical
vein:

"We are about to be besieged," he said. "The woods, probably, are
already thick with spies. For the moment, we must suspend o