was believed that the answer was "Yes."

"Poor fellows!" muttered Fox, who was a man of tender feelings, although
apt to feel more for himself than for any one else.

"I think Dick Martin was in the boat," said the mate of the _Cormorant_,
who stood beside his skipper. "I saw them when they shoved off, and
though it was a longish distance, I could make him out by his size, an'
the fur cap he wore."

"Well, the world won't lose much if he's gone," returned Fox; "he was a
bad lot."

It did not occur to the skipper at that time that he himself was nearly,
if not quite, as bad a "lot." But bad men are proverbially blind to
their own faults.

"He was a cross-grained fellow," returned the mate, "specially when in
liquor, but I never heard no worse of 'im than that."

"Didn't you?" said Fox; "didn't you hear what they said of 'im at
Gorleston?--that he tried to do his sister out of a lot o' money as was
left her by some cove or other in furrin parts. An' some folk are quite
sure that it was him as stole the little savin's o' that poor widdy,
Mrs Mooney, though they can't just prove it agin him. Ah, he is a bad
lot, an' no mistake. But I may say that o' the whole bilin' o' the
Martins. Look at Fred, now."

"Well, wot of him?" asked the mate, in a somewhat gruff tone.

"What of him!" repeated the skipper, "ain't he a hypocrite, with his
smooth tongue an' his sly ways, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth,
an' now--where is he?"

"Well, _where_ is he!" demanded the mate, with increasing gruffness.

"Why, in course nobody knows where he is," retorted the skipper; "that's
where it is. No sooner does he get a small windfall--leastwise, his
mother gets it--than he cuts the trawlers, an' all his old friends
without so much as sayin' `Good-bye,' an' goes off to Lunnon or
somewheres, to set up for a gentleman, I suppose."

"I don't believe nothin' o' the sort," returned the mate indignantly.
"Fred Martin may be smooth-tongued and shy if you like, but he's no
hypercrite--"

"Hallo! there's that mission ship on the lee bow," cried Fox,
interrupting his mate, and going over to the lee side of the smack,
whence he could see the vessel with the great blue flag clearly. "Port
your helm," he added in a deep growl to the man who steered. "I'll give
her a wide berth."

"If she was the _coper_ you'd steer the other way," remarked the mate,
with a laugh.

"In course I would," retorted Fox, "for there I'd find cheap b