“Oh, oh!” said I.  “So Mr. Goodfellow, too, knew of this?  And Plinny, I suppose?  And, in fact, you told every one but me?”

“No, sir,” said Captain Branscome, gravely; “I did not trouble Miss Plinlimmon with these perhaps unnecessary fears.  To a lady of her sensitive nature—­”

“Oh, well, sir,” I interrupted and, turning aside pettishly, began to haul my cockboat down to the water, “since you choose to treat me like a baby of six, I suppose it’s no wonder you take Plinny for a timorous old fool.”

“Sir!” exploded Captain Branscome, and glancing back over my shoulder I saw him leaning on his stick and fairly trembling with wrath.  “This disrespectful language!  And of a lady for whom—­for whom—­”

“Disrespect?”—­I whistled.  “Is it worse to speak disrespect or to act it?  I have known Plinny for years—­you for a month or two; and one of these days, if this expedition gets into a mess—­as it likely will with such handling—­that sensitive lady will make you see stars.”

I knew, while I uttered it, that my speech was abominably ill-conditioned; that Captain Branscome had, in fact, been holding out the olive-branch, and that in common decency I ought to have caught at it.  In short, I felt my boyish temper going from bad to worse, and yet, somehow, that I could not apply the brake to it.

“Why, confound the boy!” ejaculated Mr. Rogers.  “What ever bee has stung him?” And gripping me by the shoulder as I heaved at the boat, he swung me round to face him.  “Look here, young Harry Brooks!  Do you happen to be sickening for something, that you talk like a gutter-snipe to a gentleman old enough to be your grandfather?  Or, damme, have you and Goodfellow been coming to blows?  By the nose of you and the state of your shirt a man would say you’ve come from a street fight; and by your talk, that your head was knocked silly.”

“It’s all very well, Mr. Rogers,” said I, sulkily, “and I know I oughtn’t to have spoken like that, but I hate to be tyrannized over.  That’s why I didn’t take your warning first along and pull back to the ship—­though I thank you for it all the same.”

“Eh?” said Mr. Rogers.  “My warning?  What in thunder is the boy talking about?”

“When you saw me sculling for shore, here, about an hour ago,” I explained, “you pretended not to see me, and went after Captain Branscome; but I saw you, fast enough, standing on the bank yonder, under the trees.”

“For a certainty the child is mad!” Mr. Rogers stared at me round-eyed. “I saw you? I pretended not to?  Why, man alive, from the time we left the ship I never set eyes on you (how should I?), nor ever guessed you were ashore till we came back and found your boat beside the dinghy.  And as for standing under those trees, I was never on the bank there for one second—­no, nor for the half of one.  The Captain and I walked around the spit together—­the tide has covered our footmarks or I could show ’em to you.”