"One hundred and eighty convicts, fifty soldiers, thirty in ship's crew,
all told, and--how many?--one, two three--seven in the cuddy.
How many do you make that?"

"We are just a little crowded this time," says Best.

"It is very wrong," says Vickers, pompously. "Very wrong.
By the King's Regulations--"

But the subject of the King's Regulations was even more distasteful
to the cuddy than Pine's interminable anecdotes, and Mrs. Vickers hastened
to change the subject.

"Are you not heartily tired of this dreadful life, Mr. Frere?"

"Well, it is not exactly the life I had hoped to lead," said Frere,
rubbing a freckled hand over his stubborn red hair;
"but I must make the best of it."

"Yes, indeed," said the lady, in that subdued manner with which
one comments upon a well-known accident, "it must have been a great shock
to you to be so suddenly deprived of so large a fortune."

"Not only that, but to find that the black sheep who got it all
sailed for India within a week of my uncle's death! Lady Devine
got a letter from him on the day of the funeral to say that
he had taken his passage in the Hydaspes for Calcutta,
and never meant to come back again!"