She might not be able to say more for him, and yet her voice had a wistfulness it had lacked while she commended Mrs Bowldler.  Certainly the lad’s looks did not take the casual glance.  He was coltish and angular, with timid, hare-like eyes.  He wore curduroy trousers (very short in the leg), a coat which had patently been made for a grown man, and in place of waistcoat a crimson guernsey which as patently was a piece of feminine apparel.  The sleeves of his coat were folded back above his wrists, and in his hand he dangled, by a string of elastic, a girl’s sailor hat.

“Healthy?” asked Captain Tobias.

As if at a military command, the boy put out his tongue.

“La!” exclaimed Mrs Bowldler, “look at that for manners!”

“Where does he come from?”

The boy glanced at Fancy in a helpless way.  Fancy was prompt. “’Twould save time—­wouldn’t it?—­now that you’ve seen Mrs Bowldler, if she went round an’ had a look at the house?”

“Which I trust,” said Mrs Bowldler, “it would not be required of me to sleep in a nattic.  It’s not that I’m peculiar, but as I said to my sister Martha at breakfast only this morning, ’Attics I was never accustomed to, and if ’tis to be attics at my age, with the roof on your head all the time and not a wink in consequence, Martha,’ I said, ’you wouldn’t ask it of me, no, not to oblige all the retired gentlemen in Christendom.’”

“You’d better trot along upstairs, then, an’ make sure,” said Fancy.  As soon as the woman was gone she jerked a nod towards the door.  “Now we can talk.  I didn’t want her to know, but Pam comes from the work’ouse.  His father was mate of a vessel and drowned at sea, and his mother couldn’t manage alone.”

“What vessel?” asked Captain Cai.  Both skippers were regarding the boy with interest.

“The Tartar Girl—­one of Mr Rogers’s—­with coal from South Shields, but a Troy crew.  It happened five years ago; an’ last night when you said you wanted a boy it came into my head that one of the Burts would be just about the age. [Pam’s other name is Burt, but I didn’t tell it just now, not wanting Mrs Bowldler to guess who he was.] So this morning I got Mr Rogers to let me telephone to Tregarrick Work’ouse—­an’ here he is.”

“Do they dress ’em like that in there?” asked

Captain Cai.

“Better fit they did!” said the girl angrily.  “They sent him over in a clean corduroy suit with ‘Work-’ouse’ written all over it:  and a nice job I had to rig him up so’s Mrs Bowldler shouldn’ guess.”

At this moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy’s explanation.  It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter scream—­the voice unmistakably Mrs Bowldler’s.

Running to the lady’s rescue, they found her in the empty parlour—­ alone, clutching at the mantelshelf with both hands, and preparing to emit another cry for succour.