"Everybody does," said the skipper, with mournful pride. "I won't part
with it."

"Not for my sake?" inquired Miss Pilbeam, eying him mournfully. "Not
after all I've done for you?"

"No," said the other, stoutly.

Miss Pilbeam put her handkerchief to her eyes and, with a suspicious
little sniff, hurried from the room. Captain Bligh, much affected,
waited for a few seconds and then went in pursuit of her. Fifteen
minutes later, shorn of his moustache, he stood in the coal-hole, sulkily
smearing himself with coal.

"That's better," said the girl; "you look horrible."

She took up a handful of coal-dust and, ordering him to stoop, shampooed
him with hearty good-will.

[Illustration: "She took up a handful of coal-dust and, ordering him to
stoop, shampooed him with hearty good-will."]

"No good half doing it," she declared. "Now go and look at yourself in
the glass in the kitchen."

The skipper went, and came back in a state of wild-eyed misery. Even
Miss Pilbeam's statement that his own mother would not know him failed to
lift the cloud from his brow. He stood disconsolate as the girl opened
the front door.