“I think he won’t come West again for a very long time,” said I.

Miss Trevor regarded me wickedly, and I knew what was coming.

“I hope you are convinced, now, Mr. Crocker, that our sex is not as black as you painted it:  that Miss Thorn knew what she was about, and that she is not the inconsistent and variable creature you took her to be.”

I felt the blood rush to my face, and Miss Thorn, too, became scarlet.  She went up to the mischievous Irene and grasping her arms from behind, bent them until she cried for mercy.

“How strong you are, Marian!  It is an outrage to hurt me so.  I haven’t said anything.”  But she was incorrigible, and when she had twisted free she began again: 

“I took it upon myself to speak a few parables to Mr. Crocker the other day.  You know, Marian, that he is one of these level-headed old fogies who think women ought to be kept in a menagerie, behind bars, to be inspected on Saturday afternoons.  Now, I appeal to you if it wouldn’t be disastrous to fall in love with a man of such ideas.  And just to let you know what a literal old law-brief he is, when I said he had had a hat-pin sticking in him for several weeks, he nearly jumped overboard, and began to feel himself all over.  Did you know that he actually believed you were doing your best to get married to the Celebrity?” (Here she dodged Miss Thorn again.) “Oh, yes, he confided in me.  He used to worry himself ill over that.  I’ll tell you what he said to me only—­”

But fortunately at this juncture Miss Trevor was captured again, and Miss Thorn put her hand over her mouth.  Heaven only knows what she would have said!

The two boats did not arrive until nearly four o’clock, owing to some trouble to the tug’s propeller.  Not knowing what excuse my client might have given for leaving some of his party ashore, I thought it best to go out to meet them.  Seated on the cabin roof of the Maria I beheld Mr. Cooke and McCann in conversation, each with a black cigar too big for him.

“Hello, Crocker, old man,” shouted my client, “did you think I was never coming back?  I’ve had lots of sport out of this hayseed captain” (and he poked that official playfully), “but I didn’t get any grub.  So we’ll have to go to Far Harbor.”

I caught the hint.  Mr. Cooke had given out that he had started for Saville to restock the larder.

“No,” he continued, “Brass Buttons didn’t let me get to Saville.  You see, when he got back to town last night they told him he had been buncoed out of the biggest thing for years, and they got it into his head that I was child enough to run a ferry for criminals.  They told him he wasn’t the sleuth he thought he was, so he came back.  They’ll have the laugh on him now, for sure.”

McCann listened with admirable good-nature, gravely pulling at his cigar, and eyeing Mr. Cooke with a friendly air of admiration.