"Easy," said the startled captain. "When you are in the early fifties,
my lad, your ideas about age will be more accurate. Besides, Nugent is
seven or eight years older than I am."

"What became of him?" inquired Jem.

"He was off the moment we berthed," said his father, suppressing a smile.
"I don't mean that he bolted--he'd got enough starch left in him not to
do that--but he didn't trespass on our hospitality a moment longer than
was necessary. I heard that he got a passage home on the Columbus. He
knew the master. She sailed some time before us for London. I thought
he'd have been home by this."

It was not until two days later, however, that the gossip in Sunwich
received a pleasant fillip by the arrival of the injured captain. He
came down from London by the midday train, and, disdaining the privacy
of a cab, prepared to run the gauntlet of his fellow-townsmen.

A weaker man would have made a detour, but he held a direct course, and
with a curt nod to acquaintances who would have stopped him walked
swiftly in the direction of home. Tradesmen ran to their shop-doors to
see him, and smoking amphibians lounging at street corners broke out into
sunny smiles as he passed. He met these annoyances with a set face and a
cold eye, but his views concerning children were not improved by the
crowd of small creatures which fluttered along the road ahead of him and,
hopeful of developments, clustered round the gate as he passed in.

[Illustration: "He met these annoyances with a set face."]