“Sit down,” said Arthur, “and make yourself at home till they get your dunnage in.  I’ve put you in the spare cabin in the port alleyway; you’ll find it nice and quiet there.  How are you feeling, father?  Would you care for a drink?”

“Yes, I’d like a tot,” replied the old man.  “Shall I ring for your steward?”

“Don’t you trouble,” said Arthur.  “I’ve got it here.”  It was in the cupboard under the chronometer, a whole case of whisky.  “I carry my own,” explained the mate; “I don’t believe in old Davis’s taste in whisky.  Help yourself, father.”

“How is Minnie?” asked the old man as he set down his glass.

“She’s all right,” was the reply.  “I wanted to tell you about that.  We go into dry dock when we get back from this trip, and Minnie and I’ll get married before I take her out again.  Quick work, isn’t it?”

The old Captain nodded; the young Captain smiled.

“You’ll be bringing Minnie out for the trip, I suppose?” asked the elder.

“That’s my idea,” agreed Arthur.

“You’re a lucky chap,” said the old man slowly.  He hesitated.  “You’ve got your ship in hand, eh, Arthur?”

“I’ve got her down to a fine point,” said Arthur emphatically.  “You needn’t bother about me, father.  I know my job, and I don’t need more teaching.  I wish you’d get to understand that.  You know Davis has bought the Stormberg?”

“I didn’t know,” said the old man with a sigh.  “It don’t matter to me, anyhow.  I’d be reaching for the engine telegraph with my right hand as like as not.  No, Arthur, I’ve done.  I’ll bother young officers no more.”

The run home was an easy one, but it confirmed old Captain Price in his resolution to have done with the sea.  Two or three times he fell about decks; a small roll, the commonplace movement of a well-driven steamship in a seaway shook him from his balance, and that missing arm, which always seemed to be there, let him down.  He would reach for a stanchion with it to steady himself, and none of his falls served to cure him of the persistent delusion that he was not a cripple.  He tried to pick things up with it, and let glasses and the like fall every day.  The officers and engineers, men who had sailed with him at his ablest, saw his weakness quickly, and, with the ready tact that comes to efficient seafarers, never showed by increased deference or any sign that they were conscious of the change.  It was only Arthur who went aside to make things easy for him, to cut his food for him at table, and so forth.

From Swansea he went home by train; Minnie and her kindly old father met him and made much of him.  Old Davis was a man who had built up his own fortune, scraping tonnage together bit by bit, from the time when, as a captain, he had salved a crazy derelict and had her turned over to him by the underwriters in quittance of his claims.  Now he owned a little fleet of good steamships of respectable burthen, and was an esteemed owner.  He did not press the Stormberg on Captain Price.  The two old men understood each other.