“I ain’t makin’ no bid for your tail-coat, if that’s what you mean,” answered Mr Philp with sudden moroseness, pulling out his watch.  “I got one.”

“Our leading townsmen, sir,” said young Mr Benny, “favour an alpaca lounge coat with this particular line.  We stock them in all sizes.  Alpacas are seldom made to measure,—­’free-and-easy’ being their motto, if I may so express it.”

“It’s mine, anyway.”

“And useful for gardening, too.  In an alpaca you can—­” Young Mr Benny, without finishing the sentence, indued one and went through brisk motions indicative of digging, hoeing, taking cuttings and transplanting them.

The end of it was that Captain Cai purchased an alpaca coat as well as a Panama hat, and having bidden “so long” to Mr Philp, and pocketed his three-and-sixpence, steered up the street in the direction of Rilla Farm, nervously stealing glimpses of himself in the shop windows as he went.  As he hove in sight of the Custom House, however, this bashfulness gave way of a sudden to bewilderment.  For there, at the foot of the steps leading up to its old-fashioned doorway lounged his mate, Mr Tregaskis, sucking a pipe.

“Hullo!  What are you doin’ here?” asked Captain Cai.

“What the devil’s that to you?” retorted Mr Tregaskis.  But a moment later he gasped and all but dropped the pipe from his mouth.  “Good Lord!”

“Took me for a stranger, hey?”

The mate stared, slowly passing a hand across his chin as though to make sure of his own beard.  “What indooced ’ee?”

“When you’re in Rome,” said Captain Cai, with a somewhat forced nonchalance, “you do as the Romans do.”

“Do they?” asked Mr Tregaskis vaguely.  “Besides, we ain’t,” he objected after a moment.

“Crew all right?”

“Upstairs,”—­this with a jerk of the thumb.

“Hey? . . .  But why?  We don’t pay off till Saturday, as you ought to know, for I told ‘ee plain enough, an’ also that the men could have any money advanced, in reason.”

“Come along and see,” said the mate mysteriously.  “I’ve been waitin’ here on the look-out for ’ee.”  He led the way up the steps, along a twisting corridor and into the Collector’s office, where, sure enough, the crew of the Hannah Hoo were gathered.

“Here’s the Cap’n, boys!” he announced.  “An’ don’t call me a liar, but take your time.”

The men—­they were standing uneasily, with doffed hats, around a table in the centre of the room—­gazed and drew a long breath.  They continued to breathe hard while the Collector bustled forward from his desk and congratulated Captain Cai on a prosperous passage.

“There’s one thing about it,” said Ben Price the bald-headed, at length breaking through the mortuary silence that reigned around the table; “it do make partin’ easier.”

“But what’s here?” demanded Captain Cai, as his gaze fell upon a curious object that occupied the centre of the table.  It was oblong:  it was covered with a large red handkerchief:  and, with the men grouped respectfully around, it suggested a miniature coffin draped and ready for committal to the deep.