what I mean, Dave?"

"Perfectly, Captain Passford: I know what it is to talk confidently and
what it is to talk confidentially, and you do both, sir," replied the
steward.

"But I am sometimes more confidential than confident. Now you must do
all your work in my state room when I am not in the cabin, and this is
the new rule," said Christy, as he went out of the room. "I know that I
can trust you, Dave; but when I tell a secret I want to know to how many
persons I am telling it. You may finish your work now;" and he closed
the door.

Christy could not have explained why he did so if it had been required
of him, but he went directly to the door leading out into the companion
way, and suddenly threw it wide open, drawing the portière aside at the
same time. Not a little to his surprise, for he had not expected it,
he found a man there; and the intruder was down on his knees, as if in
position to place his ear at the keyhole. This time the young commander
was indignant, and without stopping to consider as long as the precepts
of his father required, he seized the man by the collar, and dragged him
into the cabin.

"What are you doing there?" demanded Christy in the heat of his
indignation.

The intruder, who was a rather stout man, began to shake his head with
all his might, and to put the fore finger of his right hand on his mouth
and one of his ears. He was big enough to have given the young commander
a deal of trouble if he had chosen to resist the force used upon him;