e day your work will lie in controlling
crowds of people."

"Dad, let me stay on a yacht till I get quite well again!"

Larssen considered for a moment. "Well, if it will help you to get your
fighting muscle, I'll arrange it. There's a small cruising yacht of
mine--the 'Starlight'--lying in Southampton Water. I might have her
cruise about the Channel for you."

"Thank you, Dad, I'd like that immensely."

"Yes, I'll see to that. We must go up to London for a few days, and
meanwhile I'll arrange to have the 'Starlight' put in order for you."

"Can I be captain of the yacht?"

"That's the spirit I want! But you can't be captain at a jump. You must
work your way up. First you'll have to work for your mate's ticket. I'll
tell the captain to put you through your paces--give you your trick at
the wheel and so on. But see here, Sonny, it'll be work and not play.
You'll have to obey orders just as if you were a new apprentice."

"I love the sea! I'll work right enough."

Larssen grew grave with memories. "Work? You'll never know work as I
knew it. At fourteen I was a drudge on a Banks trawler. Kicked and
punched and fed on the leavings of the fo'castle. Hands skinned raw with
hauling on the dredge-ropes----"

A deck steward bearing a wireless telegram came to interrupt them. The
message was from Olive, and it read:

"Important developments. Come to see me as soon as you arrive."

Larssen scribbled an answer and handed it to the steward for despatch.

The boy was thinking over the coming cruise of the "Starlight." Suddenly
he exclaimed: "I've got an idea! Invite her on board my yacht!"

Larssen smiled. "That's a very practical test for her!" he said.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE REINS HAD SLIPPED

The Italian garden at Thornton Chase was perfect in its artificiality.
It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces
with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf
offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a
racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where
Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo Belvedere, the
Capitoline Venus, Minerva, and Flora had their niches against a
greenhouse of which the roof formed the terrace above--a greenhouse
where patrician exotics held formal court.

Olive was feeding a calm-eyed Borzoi from the tea-table when Larssen and
his little boy arrived. The pose was that of a Gainsborough
portrait--s