“You young fool!” exclaimed Charlie.  “The water round here is thick with sharks; you wouldn’t have gone fifty yards without one of them getting you.” ...

“Sharks!” gasped out the boy, contemptuously.  “I know more about sharks than you do.”

“You seem to know a good many things I don’t,” said Charlie, whose grimness had evidently relaxed a little at the lad’s display of mettle.  Meanwhile, my temper was beginning to rise on behalf of our young passenger.

“I tell you what, Charlie,” I interposed; “if you are going to keep this up, you’d better count me out on this trip and set us both ashore at West End.  You’re making a fool of yourself.  The lad’s all right.  Any one can see with half an eye there’s no harm in him.”

The boy shot me a warm glance of gratitude.

“All right,” agreed Charlie, beginning to lose his temper too, “I’m damned if I don’t.”  And, his hand on the tiller, he made as if to turn the boat about and tack for the shore.

“No! no!” cried the boy, springing between us, and appealingly laying one hand on Charlie’s shoulder, the other on mine.  “You mustn’t let me spoil your trip.  I’ll compromise.  And, skipper, I’ll tell your friend here all there is to tell—­everything—­I swear—­if you will leave it to his judgment.”

Charlie gloomed for a moment or two, thinking it over, while I stood aloof with an injured air.

“Right-O,” agreed Charlie at last; so our passenger and I thereupon withdrew for our conference.

It was soon over, and I couldn’t help laughing aloud at the simplicity of it all.

“Just as I told you, Charlie,” I exclaimed; “it’s innocence itself.”  Turning to the lad, I said:  “Dear boy, there is really no need to keep such a small secret as that from the skipper here.  You’ll really have to let me tell him.”

The boy nodded acquiescence.

“All the same, I gave my word,” he said

When I told Charlie the innocent secret, he laughed as I had done, and his usual good humour instantly returned.

“But to think, you young scapegrace,” he exclaimed, “that you might either have been eaten by a shark, or have broken up an old friendship, for such nonsense as that.”  And, turning to me, and stretching out his huge paw, “My hand, old man; forgive my bad temper.”

“Mine too,” said I.

So harmony was restored, and the stubbornly held secret had merely amounted to this:  Our lad was acquainted with my conchologist, and had paid him a visit the very afternoon I did, had in fact seen me leaving the house.  Answering to the boy’s romantic talk of buried treasure and so forth, the shell enthusiast had thought no harm to tell him of our projected trip; and that was the whole of the mysterious matter.

Yet the day was not to end without a little incident which, slight though indeed it was, was momentarily to arouse Charlie’s suspicions of our charming young companion once more.