“You’d want good glasses,” retorted Metcalfe, who was becoming ruffled.

“I don’t want to bandy words with you,” said the captain with dignity, after a long pause, devoted to thinking of something worth bandying.  “You think you’re a clever fellow, but I know a cleverer.  You’re quite welcome to marry my daughter—­if you can.”

He turned on his heel, and refusing to listen to any further remarks, went on his way rejoicing.  Arrived home, he lit his pipe, and throwing himself into an armchair, related his exploits.  Chrissie had recourse to her handkerchief again, more for effect than use, but Miss Polson, who was a tender soul, took hers out and wept unrestrainedly.  At first the captain took it well enough.  It was a tribute to his power, but when they took to sobbing one against the other, his temper rose, and he sternly commanded silence.

“I shall be like—­this—­every day at sea,” sobbed Chrissie vindictively, “only worse; making us all ridiculous.”

“Stop that noise directly!” vociferated the captain.

“We c-c-can’t,” sobbed Miss Polson.

“And we d-don’t want to,” said Chrissie.  “It’s all we can do, and we’re going to do it.  You’d better g-go out and stop something else.  You can’t stop us.”

The captain took the advice and went, and in the billiard-room of the “George” heard some news which set him thinking, and which brought him back somewhat earlier than he had at first intended.  A small group at his gate broke up into its elements at his approach, and the captain, following his sister and daughter into the room, sat down and eyed them severely.

“So you’re going to run off to London to get married, are you, miss?” he said ferociously.  “Well, we’ll see.  You don’t go out of my sight until we sail, and if I catch that pettifogging lawyer round at my gate again, I’ll break every bone in his body, mind that.”

For the next three days the captain kept his daughter under observation, and never allowed her to stir abroad except in his company.  The evening of the third day, to his own great surprise, he spent at a Dorcas.  The company was not congenial, several of the ladies putting their work away, and glaring frigidly at the intruder; and though they could see clearly that he was suffering greatly, made no attempt to put him at his ease.  He was very thoughtful all the way home, and the next day took a partner into the concern, in the shape of his boatswain.

“You understand, Tucker,” he concluded, as the hapless seaman stood in a cringing attitude before Chrissie, “that you never let my daughter out of your sight.  When she goes out you go with her.”

“Yessir,” said Tucker; “and suppose she tells me to go home, what am I to do then?”

“You’re a fool,” said the captain sharply.  “It doesn’t matter what she says or does; unless you are in the same room, you are never to be more than three yards from her.”