“Must be it’s Dab!” exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.

“O mother!” said Annie, “is Ford safe?”

“They wouldn’t cheer like that, my dear, if any thing had happened,” remarked Mr. Foster; but, in spite of his coolness, the city lawyer forgot to put his hat on, as he dashed out of the front gate and down the road towards the landing.

Then came one of those times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about:  for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after “Captain Kinzer” and his crew had landed, poor Dick was being hugged and scolded within an inch of his life, and the two other boys found themselves in the midst of a perfect tumult of embraces and cheers.

Frank Harley’s turn came soon, moreover; for Ford Foster found his balance, and introduced the “passenger from India” to his father.

“Frank Harley!” exclaimed Mr. Foster.  “I’ve heard of you, certainly; but how did you—­boys, I don’t understand”—­

“Oh! father, it’s all right.  We took Frank off the French steamer, after she ran ashore.”

“Ran ashore?”

“Yes.  Down the Jersey coast.  We got in company with her in the fog, after the storm.  That was yesterday evening.”

“Down the Jersey coast?  Do you mean you’ve been out at sea?”

“Yes, father; and I’d go again, with Dab Kinzer for captain.  Do you know, father, he never left the rudder of ‘The Swallow’ from the moment we started until seven o’clock this morning.”

“You owe him your lives!” almost shouted Mr. Foster; and Ford added emphatically, “Indeed we do!”

It was Dab’s own mother’s arms that had been around him from the instant he had stepped ashore, and Samantha and Keziah and Pamela had had to content themselves with a kiss or so apiece; but dear, good Mrs. Foster stopped smoothing Ford’s hair and forehead just then, and came and gave Dab a right motherly hug, as if she could not express her feelings in any other way.

As for Annie Foster, her face was suspiciously red at the moment; but she walked right up to Dab after her mother released him, and said,—­

“Captain Kinzer, I’ve been saying dreadful things about you, but I beg pardon.”

“I’ll be entirely satisfied, Miss Foster,” said Dabney, “if you’ll only ask somebody to get us something to eat.”

“Eat!” exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.  “Why, the poor fellows!  Of course they’re hungry.”

“Cap’n Kinzer allers does know jes’ de right t’ing to do,” mumbled Dick in a half-smothered voice; and his mother let go of him, with—­

“Law, suz!  So dey be!”

Hungry enough they all were, indeed; and the supper-table, moreover, was the best place in the world for the further particulars of their wonderful cruise to be told and heard.

Dick Lee was led home in triumph to a capital supper of his own; and as soon as that was over he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes,—­red silk necktie and all,—­and invited to tell the story of his adventures to a roomful of admiring neighbors.  He told it well, modestly ascribing every thing to Dab Kinzer; but there was no good reason, in any thing he said, for one of his father’s friends to inquire next morning,—­