“Mr. Crocker,” he said, with melancholy humor, “it’s leery I am with the whole shooting-match.  Mr. Cooke here is a gentleman, every inch of him, and so be you, Mr. Crocker.  But I’m just after taking a look at the hole in the bottom of the boat.  ’Ye have yer bunks in queer places, Mr. Cooke,’ says I. It’s not for me to be doubting a gentleman’s word, sir, but I’m thinking me man is over the hills and far away, and that’s true for ye.”

Mr. Cooke winked expressively.

“McCann, you’ve been jerked,” said he.  “Have another bottle!”

The Sinclair towed us to Far Harbor for a consideration, the wind being strong again from the south, and McCann was induced by the affable owner to remain on the yellow-plush yacht.  I cornered him before we had gone a great distance.

“McCann,” said I, “what made you come back to-day?”

“Faith, Mr. Crocker, I don’t care if I am telling you.  I always had a liking for you, sir, and bechune you and me it was that divil O’Meara what made all the trouble.  I wasn’t taking his money, not me; the saints forbid!  But glory be to God, if he didn’t raise a rumpus whin I come back without Allen!  It was sure he was that the gent left that place, —­what are ye calling it?—­Mohair, in the Maria, and we telegraphs over to Asquith.  He swore I’d lose me job if I didn’t fetch him to-day.  Mr. Crocker, sir, it’s the lumber business I’ll be startin’ next week,” said McCann.

“Don’t let that worry you, McCann,” I answered.  “I will see that you don’t lose your place, and I give you my word again that Charles Wrexell Allen has never been aboard this yacht, or at Mohair to my knowledge.  What is more, I will prove it to-morrow to your satisfaction.”

McCann’s faith was touching.

“Ye’re not to say another word, sir,” he said, and he stuck out his big hand, which I grasped warmly.

My affection for McCann still remains a strong one.

After my talk with McCann I was sitting on the forecastle propped against the bitts of the Maria’s anchor-chain, and looking at the swirling foam cast up by the tug’s propeller.  There were many things I wished to turn over in my mind just then, but I had not long been in a state of reverie when I became conscious that Miss Thorn was standing beside me.  I got to my feet.

“I have been wondering how long you would remain in that trance, Mr. Crocker,” she said.  “Is it too much to ask what you were thinking of?”

Now it so chanced that I was thinking of her at that moment.  It would never have done to say this, so I stammered.  And Miss Thorn was a young woman of tact.

“I should not have put that to so literal a man as you,” she declared.  “I fear that you are incapable of crossing swords.  And then,” she added, with a slight hesitation that puzzled me, “I did not come up here to ask you that,—­I came to get your opinion.”

“My opinion?” I repeated.