“It must ha’ been nice for the captain to ’ave you with ’im to-day,” remarked Ann, carelessly.

“It was,” said Mr. Wilks, pausing with the glass at his lips and eyeing her sternly.  “Eighteen years I’ve bin with ’im—­ever since ’e ’ad a ship.  ’E took a fancy to me the fust time ’e set eyes on me.”

“Were you better-looking then, Sam?” inquired Miss Nugent, shuffling closer to him on the table and regarding him affectionately.

“Much as I am now, Miss,” replied Mr. Wilks, setting down his glass and regarding Ann’s giggles with a cold eye.

Miss Nugent sighed.  “I love you, Sam,” she said, simply.  “Will you have some more beer?”

Mr. Wilks declined gracefully.  “Eighteen years I’ve bin with the cap’n,” he remarked, softly; “through calms and storms, fair weather and foul, Samson Wilks ’as been by ’is side, always ready in a quiet and ’umble way to do ’is best for ’im, and now—­now that ’e is on his beam-ends and lost ’is ship, Samson Wilks’ll sit down and starve ashore till he gets another.”

At these touching words Miss Nugent was undisguisedly affected, and wiping her bright eyes with her pinafore, gave her small, well-shaped nose a slight touch en passant with the same useful garment, and squeezed his arm affectionately.

“It’s a lively look-out for me if father is going to be at home for long,” remarked Master Nugent.  Who’ll get his ship, Sam?”

“Shouldn’t wonder if the fust officer, Mr. Hardy, got it,” replied the steward.  “He was going dead-slow in the fog afore he sent down to rouse your father, and as soon as your father came on deck ’e went at ’arfspeed.  Mr. Hardy was commended, and your father’s certifikit was suspended for six months.”

Master Nugent whistled thoughtfully, and quitting the kitchen proceeded upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair.  He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding.  While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some trepidation to the conversation.

“Is that steward of mine still in the kitchen?” demanded the captain, gruffly.

“Yessir,” said Ann.

“What’s he doing?”

Mr. Wilks’s ears quivered anxiously, and he eyed with unwonted disfavour the evidences of his late debauch.

“Sitting down, sir,” replied Ann.

“Give him a glass of ale and send him off,” commanded the captain; “and if that was Miss Kate I heard talking, send her in to me.”

Ann took the message back to the kitchen and, with the air of a martyr engaged upon an unpleasant task, drew Mr. Wilks another glass of ale and stood over him with well-affected wonder while he drank it.  Miss Nugent walked into the sitting-room, and listening in a perfunctory fashion to a shipmaster’s platitude on kitchen-company, took a seat on his knee and kissed his ear.