“We’ll have supper in an hour,” observed Trot’s mother briskly, “but a hungry child can’t wait a whole hour, I’m sure.  What are you grinning at, Cap’n Bill?  How dare you laugh when I’m talking?  Stop it this minute, you old pirate, or I’ll know the reason why!”

“I didn’t, mum,” said Cap’n Bill meekly.  “I on’y—­”

“Stop right there, sir!  How dare you speak when I’m talking?” She turned to Button-Bright, and her tone changed to one of much gentleness as she said, “Come in the house, my poor boy, an’ rest yourself.  You seem tired out.  Here, give me that clumsy umbrella.”

“No, please,” said Button-Bright, holding the umbrella tighter.

“Then put it in the rack behind the door,” she urged.

The boy seemed a little frightened.  “I—­I’d rather keep it with me, if you please,” he pleaded.

“Never mind,” Cap’n Bill ventured to say, “it won’t worry him so much to hold the umbrella, mum, as to let it go.  Guess he’s afraid he’ll lose it, but it ain’t any great shakes, to my notion.  Why, see here, Button-Bright, we’ve got half-a-dozen umbrellas in the closet that’s better ner yours.”

“Perhaps,” said the boy.  “Yours may look a heap better, sir, but—­I’ll keep this one, if you please.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Trot, appearing just then with a plate of bread-and-butter.

“It—­it belongs in our family,” said Button-Bright, beginning to eat and speaking between bites.  “This umbrella has been in our family years, an’ years, an’ years.  But it was tucked away up in our attic an’ no one ever used it ’cause it wasn’t pretty.”

“Don’t blame ’em much,” remarked Cap’n Bill, gazing at it curiously.  “It’s a pretty old-lookin’ bumbershoot.”  They were all seated in the vine-shaded porch of the cottage—­all but Mrs. Griffith, who had gone into the kitchen to look after the supper—­and Trot was on one side of the boy, holding the plate for him, while Cap’n Bill sat on the other side.

“It is old,” said Button-Bright.  “One of my great-great-grandfathers was a Knight—­an Arabian Knight—­and it was he who first found this umbrella.”

“An Arabian Night!” exclaimed Trot.  “Why, that was a magic night, wasn’t it?”

“There’s diff’rent sorts o’ nights, mate,” said the sailor, “an’ the knight Button-Bright means ain’t the same night you mean.  Soldiers used to be called knights, but that were in the dark ages, I guess, an’ likely ’nough Butt’n-Bright’s great-gran’ther were that sort of a knight.”

“But he said an Arabian Knight,” persisted Trot.

“Well, if he went to Araby, or was born there, he’d be an Arabian Knight, wouldn’t he?  The lad’s gran’ther were prob’ly a furriner, an’ yours an’ mine were, too, Trot, if you go back far enough; for Ameriky wasn’t diskivered in them days.”

“There!” said Trot triumphantly.  “Didn’t I tell you, Button-Bright, that Cap’n Bill knows ever’thing?”