“I—­I’ve been telling them some of your adventures,” he said, desperately, as he glanced at the captain; “they’re both interested in such things.”

The latter gave a slight start and glanced shrewdly at his visitors.  “Aye, aye,” he said, composedly.

“Very interesting, some of them,” murmured Mr. Tredgold.  “I suppose you’ll have another voyage or two before you’ve done?  One, at any rate.”

“No,” said the captain, “I’ve had my share of the sea; other men may have a turn now.  There’s nothing to take me out again—­nothing.”

Mr. Tredgold coughed and murmured something about breaking off old habits too suddenly.

“It’s a fine career,” sighed Mr. Chalk.

“A manly life,” said Mr. Tredgold, emphatically.

“It’s like every other profession, it has two sides to it,” said the captain.

“It is not so well paid as it should be,” said the wily Tredgold, “but I suppose one gets chances of making money in outside ways sometimes.”

The captain assented, and told of a steward of his who had made a small fortune by selling Japanese curios to people who didn’t understand them.

The conversation was interesting, but extremely distasteful to a business man intent upon business.  Mr. Stobell took his pipe out of his mouth and cleared his throat.  “Why, you might build a hospital with it,” he burst out, impatiently.

“Build a hospital!” repeated the astonished captain, as Mr. Chalk bent suddenly to do up his shoelace.

“Think of the orphans you could be a father to!” added Mr. Stobell, making the most of an unwonted fit of altruism.

The captain looked inquiringly at Mr. Tredgold.

“And widows,” said Mr. Stobell, and, putting his pipe in his mouth as a sign that he had finished his remarks, gazed stolidly at the company.

“Stobell must be referring to a story Chalk told us of some precious stones you buried, I think,” said Mr. Tredgold, reddening.  “Aren’t you, Stobell?”

“Of course I am,” said his friend.  “You know that.”

Captain Bowers glanced at Mr. Chalk, but that gentleman was still busy with his shoe-lace, only looking up when Mr. Tredgold, taking the bull by the horns, made the captain a plain, straightforward offer to fit out and give him the command of an expedition to recover the treasure.  In a speech which included the benevolent Mr. Stobell’s hospitals, widows, and orphans, he pointed out a score of reasons why the captain should consent, and wound up with a glowing picture of Miss Drewitt as the heiress of the wealthiest man in Binchester.  The captain heard him patiently to an end and then shook his head.

“I passed my word,” he said, stiffly.

Mr. Stobell took his pipe out of his mouth again to offer a little encouragement.  “Tredgold has broke his word before now,” he observed; “he’s got quite a name for it.”

“But you would go out if it were not for that?” inquired Tredgold, turning a deaf ear to this remark.