“Do you want all the river?” demanded the exasperated master of the latter vessel, running to the side as they passed.  “Why don’t you drop anchor if you want to spoon?”

“Perhaps you ’d better let me take the wheel a bit,” said the mate, not without a little malice in his voice.

“No; you can go an’ keep a look-out in the bows,” said the girl serenely.  “It’ll prevent misunderstandings, too.  Better take the potatoes with you and peel them for dinner.”

The mate complied, and the voyage proceeded in silence, the steering being rendered a little nicer than usual by various nautical sparks bringing their boats a bit closer than was necessary in order to obtain a good view of the fair steersman.

After dinner, the tide having turned and a stiff head-wind blowing, they brought up off Sheppey.  It began to rain hard, and the crew of the Osprey, having made all snug above, retired to the cabin to resume their quarrel.

“Don’t mind me,” said Miss Cringle scathingly, as the mate lit his pipe.

“Well, I didn’t think you minded,” replied the mate; “the old man”—­

“Who?” interrupted Miss Cringle, in a tone of polite inquiry.

“Captain Cringle,” said the mate, correcting himself, “smokes a great deal, and I’ve heard him say that you liked the smell of it,”

“There’s pipes and pipes,” said Miss Cringle oracularly.

The mate flung his on the floor and crunched it beneath his heel, then he thrust his hands in his pockets, and, leaning back, scowled darkly up at the rain as it crackled on the skylight.

“If you are going to show off your nasty temper,” said the girl severely, “you’d better go forward.  It’s not quite the thing after all for you to be down here—­not that I study appearances much.”

“I shouldn’t think you did,” retorted the mate, whose temper was rapidly getting the better of him.  “I can’t think what your father was thinking of to let a pret—­to let a girl like you come away like this.”

“If you were going to say pretty girl,” said Miss Cringle, with calm self-abnegation, “don’t mind me, say it.  The captain knows what he’s about.  He told me you were a milksop; he said you were a good young man and a teetotaller.”

The mate, allowing the truth of the captain’s statement as to his abstinence, hotly denied the charge of goodness.  “I can understand your father’s hurry to get rid of you for a spell,” he concluded, being goaded beyond all consideration of politeness.  “His gout ’ud never get well while you were with him.  More than that, I shouldn’t wonder if you were the cause of it.”

With this parting shot he departed, before the girl could think of a suitable reply, and went and sulked in the dingy little fo’c’sle.

In the evening, the weather having moderated somewhat, and the tide being on the ebb, they got under way again, the girl coming on deck fully attired in an oilskin coat and sou’-wester to resume the command.  The rain fell steadily as they ploughed along their way, guided by the bright eye of the “Mouse” as it shone across the darkening waters.  The mate, soaked to the skin, was at the wheel.