“Extraordinary thing,” said the captain, shaking his head, “extraordinary.  Like a play.”

“Play?” said his son, sharply.

“Play,” repeated his father, firmly.  “What is the name of it?  I saw it once at Newcastle.  The lovers take poison and die across each other’s chests because their people won’t let ’em marry.  And that reminds me.  I saw some phosphor-paste in the kitchen, Jem.  Whose is it?”

“I’m glad to be the means of affording you amusement,” said Jem, grinding his teeth.

Captain Hardy regarded him affectionately.  “Go easy, my lad,” he said, equably; “go easy.  If I’d known it before, things would have been different; as I didn’t, we must make the best of it.  She’s a pretty girl, and a good one, too, for all her airs, but I’m afraid she’s too fond of her father to overlook this.”

“That’s where you’ve made such a mess of things,” broke in his son.  “Why on earth you two old men couldn’t—­”

“Easy,” said the startled captain.  “When you are in the early fifties, my lad, your ideas about age will be more accurate.  Besides, Nugent is seven or eight years older than I am.”

“What became of him?” inquired Jem.

“He was off the moment we berthed,” said his father, suppressing a smile.  “I don’t mean that he bolted—­he’d got enough starch left in him not to do that—­but he didn’t trespass on our hospitality a moment longer than was necessary.  I heard that he got a passage home on the Columbus.  He knew the master.  She sailed some time before us for London.  I thought he’d have been home by this.”

It was not until two days later, however, that the gossip in Sunwich received a pleasant fillip by the arrival of the injured captain.  He came down from London by the midday train, and, disdaining the privacy of a cab, prepared to run the gauntlet of his fellow-townsmen.

A weaker man would have made a detour, but he held a direct course, and with a curt nod to acquaintances who would have stopped him walked swiftly in the direction of home.  Tradesmen ran to their shop-doors to see him, and smoking amphibians lounging at street corners broke out into sunny smiles as he passed.  He met these annoyances with a set face and a cold eye, but his views concerning children were not improved by the crowd of small creatures which fluttered along the road ahead of him and, hopeful of developments, clustered round the gate as he passed in.

[Illustration:  “He met these annoyances with a set face.”]

It is the pride and privilege of most returned wanderers to hold forth at great length concerning their adventures, but Captain Nugent was commendably brief.  At first he could hardly be induced to speak of them at all, but the necessity of contradicting stories which Bella had gleaned for Mrs. Kingdom from friends in town proved too strong for him.  He ground his teeth with suppressed fury as he listened to some of them.  The truth was bad enough, and his daughter, sitting by his side with her hand in his, was trembling with indignation.