hairbreadth escapes, or, drawing his chair to the table, made rough maps
for his listener's clearer understanding. Sometimes the captain took him
to palm-studded islands in the Southern Seas; sometimes to the ancient
worlds of China and Japan. He became an expert in nautical terms. He
walked in knots, and even ordered a new carpet in fathoms--after the
shop-keeper had demonstrated, by means of his little boy's arithmetic
book, the difference between that measurement and a furlong.

[Illustration: "Sometimes the captain took him to palm-studded islands in
the Southern Seas."]

"I'll have a voyage before I'm much older," he remarked one afternoon, as
he sat in the captain's sitting-room. "Since I retired from business
time hangs very heavy sometimes. I've got a fancy for a small yacht, but
I suppose I couldn't go a long voyage in a small one?"

"Smaller the better," said Edward Tredgold, who was sitting by the window
watching Miss Drewitt sewing.

Mr. Chalk took his pipe from his mouth and eyed him inquiringly.

"Less to lose," explained Mr. Tredgold, with a scarcely perceptible
glance at the captain. "Look at the dangers you'd be dragging your craft
into, Chalk; there would be no satisfying you with a quiet cruise in the
Mediterranean."

"I shouldn't run into unnecessary danger," said Mr. Chalk, seriously.
"I'm a married man, and there's my wife to think of. What would become
of her if anything happened to me?"