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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10871 ***
+
+AT SUNWICH PORT
+
+BY
+
+W. W. JACOBS
+
+
+Part 1.
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+From Drawings by Will Owen
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The ancient port of Sunwich was basking in the sunshine of a July
+afternoon.  A rattle of cranes and winches sounded from the shipping in
+the harbour, but the town itself was half asleep.  Somnolent shopkeepers
+in dim back parlours coyly veiled their faces in red handkerchiefs from
+the too ardent flies, while small boys left in charge noticed listlessly
+the slow passing of time as recorded by the church clock.
+
+It is a fine church, and Sunwich is proud of it.  The tall grey tower is
+a landmark at sea, but from the narrow streets of the little town itself
+it has a disquieting appearance of rising suddenly above the roofs
+huddled beneath it for the purpose of displaying a black-faced clock with
+gilt numerals whose mellow chimes have recorded the passing hours for
+many generations of Sunwich men.
+
+Regardless of the heat, which indeed was mild compared with that which
+raged in his own bosom, Captain Nugent, fresh from the inquiry of the
+collision of his ship _Conqueror_ with the German barque _Hans Muller_,
+strode rapidly up the High Street in the direction of home.  An honest
+seafaring smell, compounded of tar, rope, and fish, known to the educated
+of Sunwich as ozone, set his thoughts upon the sea.  He longed to be
+aboard ship again, with the Court of Inquiry to form part of his crew.
+In all his fifty years of life he had never met such a collection of
+fools.  His hard blue eyes blazed as he thought of them, and the mouth
+hidden by his well-kept beard was set with anger.
+
+Mr. Samson Wilks, his steward, who had been with him to London to give
+evidence, had had a time upon which he looked back in later years with
+much satisfaction at his powers of endurance.  He was with the captain,
+and yet not with him.  When they got out of the train at Sunwich he
+hesitated as to whether he should follow the captain or leave him.  His
+excuse for following was the bag, his reason for leaving the volcanic
+condition of its owner's temper, coupled with the fact that he appeared
+to be sublimely ignorant that the most devoted steward in the world was
+tagging faithfully along a yard or two in the rear.
+
+The few passers-by glanced at the couple with interest.  Mr. Wilks had
+what is called an expressive face, and he had worked his sandy eyebrows,
+his weak blue eyes, and large, tremulous mouth into such an expression of
+surprise at the finding of the Court, that he had all the appearance of a
+beholder of visions.  He changed the bag to his other hand as they left
+the town behind them, and regarded with gratitude the approaching end of
+his labours.
+
+At the garden-gate of a fair-sized house some half-mile along the road
+the captain stopped, and after an impatient fumbling at the latch strode
+up the path, followed by Mr. Wilks, and knocked at the door.  As he
+paused on the step he half turned, and for the first time noticed the
+facial expression of his faithful follower.
+
+"What the dickens are you looking like that for?" he demanded.
+
+"I've been surprised, sir," conceded Mr. Wilks; "surprised and
+astonished."
+
+Wrath blazed again in the captain's eyes and set lines in his forehead.
+He was being pitied by a steward!
+
+"You've been drinking," he said, crisply; "put that bag down."
+
+"Arsking your pardon, sir," said the steward, twisting his unusually dry
+lips into a smile, "but I've 'ad no opportunity, sir--I've been follerin'
+you all day, sir."
+
+A servant opened the door.  "You've been soaking in it for a month,"
+declared the captain as he entered the hall.  "Why the blazes don't you
+bring that bag in?  Are you so drunk you don't know what you are doing?"
+
+Mr. Wilks picked the bag up and followed humbly into the house.  Then he
+lost his head altogether, and gave some colour to his superior officer's
+charges by first cannoning into the servant and then wedging the captain
+firmly in the doorway of the sitting-room with the bag.
+
+"Steward!" rasped the captain.
+
+"Yessir," said the unhappy Mr. Wilks.
+
+"Go and sit down in the kitchen, and don't leave this house till you're
+sober."
+
+Mr. Wilks disappeared.  He was not in his first lustre, but he was an
+ardent admirer of the sex, and in an absent-minded way he passed his arm
+round the handmaiden's waist, and sustained a buffet which made his head
+ring.
+
+"A man o' your age, and drunk, too," explained the damsel.
+
+Mr. Wilks denied both charges.  It appeared that he was much younger than
+he looked, while, as for drink, he had forgotten the taste of it.  A
+question as to the reception Ann would have accorded a boyish teetotaler
+remained unanswered.
+
+In the sitting-room Mrs. Kingdom, the captain's widowed sister, put down
+her crochet-work as her brother entered, and turned to him expectantly.
+There was an expression of loving sympathy on her mild and rather foolish
+face, and the captain stiffened at once.
+
+"I was in the wrong," he said, harshly, as he dropped into a chair; "my
+certificate has been suspended for six months, and my first officer has
+been commended."
+
+"Suspended?" gasped Mrs. Kingdom, pushing back the white streamer to the
+cap which she wore in memory of the late Mr. Kingdom, and sitting
+upright.  You?"
+
+"I think that's what I said," replied her brother.
+
+Mrs. Kingdom gazed at him mournfully, and, putting her hand behind her,
+began a wriggling search in her pocket for a handkerchief, with the idea
+of paying a wholesome tribute of tears.  She was a past-master in the art
+of grief, and, pending its extraction, a docile tear hung on her eyelid
+and waited.  The captain eyed her preparations with silent anger.
+
+"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Kingdom, dabbing her eyes; "I expected it
+somehow.  I seemed to have a warning of it.  Something seemed to tell me;
+I couldn't explain, but I seemed to know."
+
+She sniffed gently, and, wiping one eye at a time, kept the disengaged
+one charged with sisterly solicitude upon her brother.  The captain, with
+steadily rising anger, endured this game of one-eyed bo-peep for five
+minutes; then he rose and, muttering strange things in his beard, stalked
+upstairs to his room.
+
+Mrs. Kingdom, thus forsaken, dried her eyes and resumed her work.  The
+remainder of the family were in the kitchen ministering to the wants of a
+misunderstood steward, and, in return, extracting information which
+should render them independent of the captain's version.
+
+"Was it very solemn, Sam?" inquired Miss Nugent, aged nine, who was
+sitting on the kitchen table.
+
+Mr. Wilks used his hands and eyebrows to indicate the solemnity of the
+occasion.
+
+"They even made the cap'n leave off speaking," he said, in an awed voice.
+
+"I should have liked to have been there," said Master Nugent, dutifully.
+
+"Ann," said Miss Nugent, "go and draw Sam a jug of beer."
+
+"Beer, Miss?" said Ann.
+
+"A jug of beer," repeated Miss Nugent, peremptorily.
+
+Ann took a jug from the dresser, and Mr. Wilks, who was watching her,
+coughed helplessly.  His perturbation attracted the attention of his
+hostess, and, looking round for the cause, she was just in time to see
+Ann disappearing into the larder with a cream jug.
+
+[Illustration: "His perturbation attracted the attention of his
+hostess."]
+
+"The big jug, Ann," she said, impatiently; "you ought to know Sam would
+like a big one."
+
+Ann changed the jugs, and, ignoring a mild triumph in Mr. Wilks's eye,
+returned to the larder, whence ensued a musical trickling.  Then Miss
+Nugent, raising the jug with some difficulty, poured out a tumbler for
+the steward with her own fair hands.
+
+"Sam likes beer," she said, speaking generally.
+
+"I knew that the first time I see him, Miss," re-marked the vindictive
+Ann.
+
+Mr. Wilks drained his glass and set it down on the table again, making a
+feeble gesture of repulse as Miss Nugent refilled it.
+
+"Go on, Sam," she said, with kindly encouragement; "how much does this
+jug hold, Jack?"
+
+"Quart," replied her brother.
+
+"How many quarts are there in a gallon?"
+
+"Four."
+
+Miss Nugent looked troubled.  "I heard father say he drinks gallons a
+day," she remarked; "you'd better fill all the jugs, Ann."
+
+"It was only 'is way o' speaking," said Mr. Wilks, hurriedly; "the cap'n
+is like that sometimes."
+
+"I knew a man once, Miss," said Ann, "as used to prefer to 'ave it in a
+wash-hand basin.  Odd, ugly-looking man 'e was; like Mr. Wilks in the
+face, only better-looking."
+
+Mr. Wilks sat upright and, in the mental struggle involved in taking in
+this insult in all its ramifications, did not notice until too late that
+Miss Nugent had filled his glass again.
+
+"It must ha' been nice for the captain to 'ave you with 'im to-day,"
+remarked Ann, carelessly.
+
+"It was," said Mr. Wilks, pausing with the glass at his lips and eyeing
+her sternly.  "Eighteen years I've bin with 'im--ever since 'e 'ad a
+ship.  'E took a fancy to me the fust time 'e set eyes on me."
+
+"Were you better-looking then, Sam?" inquired Miss Nugent, shuffling
+closer to him on the table and regarding him affectionately.
+
+"Much as I am now, Miss," replied Mr. Wilks, setting down his glass and
+regarding Ann's giggles with a cold eye.
+
+Miss Nugent sighed.  "I love you, Sam," she said, simply.  "Will you have
+some more beer?"
+
+Mr. Wilks declined gracefully.  "Eighteen years I've bin with the cap'n,"
+he remarked, softly; "through calms and storms, fair weather and foul,
+Samson Wilks 'as been by 'is side, always ready in a quiet and 'umble way
+to do 'is best for 'im, and now--now that 'e is on his beam-ends and lost
+'is ship, Samson Wilks'll sit down and starve ashore till he gets
+another."
+
+At these touching words Miss Nugent was undisguisedly affected, and
+wiping her bright eyes with her pinafore, gave her small, well-shaped
+nose a slight touch _en passant_ with the same useful garment, and
+squeezed his arm affectionately.
+
+"It's a lively look-out for me if father is going to be at home for
+long," remarked Master Nugent.  Who'll get his ship, Sam?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if the fust officer, Mr. Hardy, got it," replied the
+steward.  "He was going dead-slow in the fog afore he sent down to rouse
+your father, and as soon as your father came on deck 'e went at
+'arfspeed.  Mr. Hardy was commended, and your father's certifikit was
+suspended for six months."
+
+Master Nugent whistled thoughtfully, and quitting the kitchen proceeded
+upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a
+boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair.  He was not
+going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for
+fault-finding.  While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang,
+and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some
+trepidation to the conversation.
+
+"Is that steward of mine still in the kitchen?" demanded the captain,
+gruffly.
+
+"Yessir," said Ann.
+
+"What's he doing?"
+
+Mr. Wilks's ears quivered anxiously, and he eyed with unwonted disfavour
+the evidences of his late debauch.
+
+"Sitting down, sir," replied Ann.
+
+"Give him a glass of ale and send him off," commanded the captain; "and
+if that was Miss Kate I heard talking, send her in to me."
+
+Ann took the message back to the kitchen and, with the air of a martyr
+engaged upon an unpleasant task, drew Mr. Wilks another glass of ale and
+stood over him with well-affected wonder while he drank it.  Miss Nugent
+walked into the sitting-room, and listening in a perfunctory fashion to a
+shipmaster's platitude on kitchen-company, took a seat on his knee and
+kissed his ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The downfall of Captain Nugent was for some time a welcome subject of
+conversation in marine circles at Sunwich.  At The Goblets, a rambling
+old inn with paved courtyard and wooden galleries, which almost backed on
+to the churchyard, brother-captains attributed it to an error of
+judgment; at the Two Schooners on the quay the profanest of sailormen
+readily attributed it to an all-seeing Providence with a dislike of
+over-bearing ship-masters.
+
+[Illustration: "A welcome subject of conversation in marine circles."]
+
+The captain's cup was filled to the brim by the promotion of his first
+officer to the command of the _Conqueror_.  It was by far the largest
+craft which sailed from the port of Sunwich, and its master held a
+corresponding dignity amongst the captains of lesser vessels.  Their
+allegiance was now transferred to Captain Hardy, and the master of a brig
+which was in the last stages of senile decay, meeting Nugent in The
+Goblets, actually showed him by means of two lucifer matches how the
+collision might have been avoided.
+
+A touching feature in the business, and a source of much gratification to
+Mr. Wilks by the sentimental applause evoked by it, was his renunciation
+of the post of steward on the ss. _Conqueror_.  Sunwich buzzed with the
+tidings that after eighteen years' service with Captain Nugent he
+preferred starvation ashore to serving under another master.  Although
+comfortable in pocket and known to be living with his mother, who kept a
+small general shop, he was regarded as a man on the brink of starvation.
+Pints were thrust upon him, and the tale of his nobility increased with
+much narration.  It was considered that the whole race of stewards had
+acquired fresh lustre from his action.
+
+His only unfavourable critic was the erring captain himself.  He sent
+a peremptory summons to Mr. Wilks to attend at Equator Lodge, and the
+moment he set eyes upon that piece of probity embarked upon such a
+vilification of his personal defects and character as Mr. Wilks had never
+even dreamt of.  He wound up by ordering him to rejoin the ship
+forthwith.
+
+"Arsking your pardon, sir," said Mr. Wilks, with tender reproach, "but I
+couldn't."
+
+"Are you going to live on your mother, you hulking rascal?" quoth the
+incensed captain.
+
+"No, sir," said Mr. Wilks.  "I've got a little money, sir; enough for my
+few wants till we sail again."
+
+"When I sail again you won't come with me," said the captain, grimly.
+"I suppose you want an excuse for a soak ashore for six months!"
+
+Mr. Wilks twiddled his cap in his hands and smiled weakly.
+
+"I thought p'r'aps as you'd like me to come round and wait at table, and
+help with the knives and boots and such-like," he said, softly.  "Ann is
+agreeable."
+
+"Get out of the house," said the captain in quiet, measured tones.
+
+Mr. Wilks went, but on his way to the gate he picked up three pieces of
+paper which had blown into the garden, weeded two pieces of grass from
+the path, and carefully removed a dead branch from a laurel facing the
+window.  He would have done more but for an imperative knocking on the
+glass, and he left the premises sadly, putting his collection of rubbish
+over the next garden fence as he passed it.
+
+But the next day the captain's boots bore such a polish that he was able
+to view his own startled face in them, and at dinner-time the brightness
+of the knives was so conspicuous that Mrs. Kingdom called Ann in for the
+purpose of asking her why she didn't always do them like that.  Her
+brother ate his meal in silence, and going to his room afterwards
+discovered every pair of boots he possessed, headed by the tall
+sea-boots, standing in a nicely graduated line by the wall, and all
+shining their hardest.
+
+For two days did Mr. Wilks do good by stealth, leaving Ann to blush to
+find it fame; but on the third day at dinner, as the captain took up his
+knife and fork to carve, he became aware of a shadow standing behind his
+chair.  A shadow in a blue coat with metal buttons, which, whipping up
+the first plate carved, carried it to Mrs. Kingdom, and then leaned
+against her with the vegetable dishes.
+
+The dishes clattered a little on his arm as he helped the captain, but
+the latter, after an impressive pause and a vain attempt to catch the eye
+of Mr. Wilks, which was intent upon things afar off, took up the spoon
+and helped himself.  From the unwonted silence of Miss Nugent in the
+presence of anything unusual it was clear to him that the whole thing had
+been carefully arranged.  He ate in silence, and a resolution to kick Mr.
+Wilks off the premises vanished before the comfort, to say nothing of the
+dignity, afforded by his presence.  Mr. Wilks, somewhat reassured,
+favoured Miss Nugent with a wink to which, although she had devoted much
+time in trying to acquire the art, she endeavoured in vain to respond.
+
+It was on the day following this that Jack Nugent, at his sister's
+instigation, made an attempt to avenge the family honour.  Miss Nugent,
+although she treated him with scant courtesy herself, had a touching
+faith in his prowess, a faith partly due to her brother occasionally
+showing her his bicep muscles in moments of exaltation.
+
+"There's that horrid Jem Hardy," she said, suddenly, as they walked along
+the road.
+
+"So it is," said Master Nugent, but without any display of enthusiasm.
+
+"Halloa, Jack," shouted Master Hardy across the road.
+
+"The suspense became painful."
+
+"Halloa," responded the other.
+
+"He's going to fight you," shrilled Miss Nugent, who thought these
+amenities ill-timed; "he said so."
+
+Master Hardy crossed the road.  "What for?" he demanded, with surprise.
+
+"Because you're a nasty, horrid boy," replied Miss Nugent, drawing
+herself up.
+
+"Oh," said Master Hardy, blankly.
+
+The two gentlemen stood regarding each other with uneasy grins; the lady
+stood by in breathless expectation.  The suspense became painful.
+
+[Illustration: "The suspense became painful."]
+
+"Who are you staring at?"  demanded Master Nugent, at last.
+
+"You," replied the other; "who are you staring at?"
+
+"You," said Master Nugent, defiantly.
+
+There was a long interval, both gentlemen experiencing some difficulty in
+working up sufficient heat for the engagement.
+
+"You hit me and see what you'll get," said Master Hardy, at length.
+
+"You hit me," said the other.
+
+"Cowardy, cowardy custard," chanted the well-bred Miss Nugent, "ate his
+mother's mustard.  Cowardy, cowardy cus--"
+
+"Why don't you send that kid home?" demanded Master Hardy, eyeing the
+fair songstress with strong disfavour.
+
+"You leave my sister alone," said the other, giving him a light tap on
+the shoulder.  "There's your coward's blow."
+
+Master Hardy made a ceremonious return.  "There's yours," he said.
+"Let's go behind the church."
+
+His foe assented, and they proceeded in grave silence to a piece of grass
+screened by trees, which stood between the church and the beach.  Here
+they removed their coats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves.  Things look
+different out of doors, and to Miss Nugent the arms of both gentlemen
+seemed somewhat stick-like in their proportions.
+
+The preliminaries were awful, both combatants prancing round each other
+with their faces just peering above their bent right arms, while their
+trusty lefts dealt vicious blows at the air.  Miss Nugent turned pale and
+caught her breath at each blow, then she suddenly reddened with wrath as
+James Philip Hardy, having paid his tribute to science, began to hammer
+John Augustus Nugent about the face in a most painful and workmanlike
+fashion.
+
+She hid her face for a moment, and when she looked again Jack was on the
+ground, and Master Hardy just rising from his prostrate body.  Then Jack
+rose slowly and, crossing over to her, borrowed her handkerchief and
+applied it with great tenderness to his nose.
+
+"Does it hurt, Jack?" she inquired, anxiously.  "No," growled her
+brother.
+
+He threw down the handkerchief and turned to his opponent again; Miss
+Nugent, who was careful about her property, stooped to recover it, and
+immediately found herself involved in a twisting tangle of legs, from
+which she escaped by a miracle to see Master Hardy cuddling her brother
+round the neck with one hand and punching him as hard and as fast as he
+could with the other.  The unfairness of it maddened her, and the next
+moment Master Hardy's head was drawn forcibly backwards by the hair.  The
+pain was so excruciating that he released his victim at once, and Miss
+Nugent, emitting a series of terrified yelps, dashed off in the direction
+of home, her hair bobbing up and down on her shoulders, and her small
+black legs in an ecstasy of motion.
+
+Master Hardy, with no very well-defined ideas of what he was going to do
+if he caught her, started in pursuit.  His scalp was still smarting and
+his eyes watering with the pain as he pounded behind her.  Panting wildly
+she heard him coming closer and closer, and she was just about to give up
+when, to her joy, she saw her father coming towards them.
+
+Master Hardy, intent on his quarry, saw him just in time, and, swerving
+into the road, passed in safety as Miss Nugent flung herself with some
+violence at her father's waistcoat and, clinging to him convulsively,
+fought for breath.  It was some time before she could furnish the
+astonished captain with full details, and she was pleased to find that
+his indignation led him to ignore the hair-grabbing episode, on which,
+to do her justice, she touched but lightly.
+
+That evening, for the first time in his life, Captain Nugent, after some
+deliberation, called upon his late mate.  The old servant who, since Mrs.
+Hardy's death the year before, had looked after the house, was out, and
+Hardy, unaware of the honour intended him, was scandalized by the manner
+in which his son received the visitor.  The door opened, there was an
+involuntary grunt from Master Hardy, and the next moment he sped along
+the narrow passage and darted upstairs.  His father, after waiting in
+vain for his return, went to the door himself.
+
+"Good evening, cap'n," he said, in surprise.
+
+Nugent responded gruffly, and followed him into the sitting-room.  To an
+invitation to sit, he responded more gruffly still that he preferred to
+stand.  He then demanded instant and sufficient punishment of Master
+Hardy for frightening his daughter.
+
+Even as he spoke he noticed with strong disfavour the change which had
+taken place in his late first officer.  The change which takes place when
+a man is promoted from that rank to that of master is subtle, but
+unmistakable--sometimes, as in the present instance, more unmistakable
+than subtle.  Captain Hardy coiled his long, sinewy form in an arm-chair
+and, eyeing him calmly, lit his pipe before replying.
+
+[Illustration: "Captain Hardy lit his pipe before replying."]
+
+"Boys will fight," he said, briefly.
+
+"I'm speaking of his running after my daughter," said Nugent, sternly.
+
+Hardy's eyes twinkled.  "Young dog," he said, genially; "at his age,
+too."
+
+Captain Nugent's face was suffused with wrath at the pleasantry, and he
+regarded him with a fixed stare.  On board the _Conqueror_ there was a
+witchery in that glance more potent than the spoken word, but in his own
+parlour the new captain met it calmly.
+
+"I didn't come here to listen to your foolery," said Nugent; "I came to
+tell you to punish that boy of yours."
+
+"And I sha'n't do it," replied the other.  "I have got something better
+to do than interfere in children's quarrels.  I haven't got your spare
+time, you know."
+
+Captain Nugent turned purple.  Such language from his late first officer
+was a revelation to him.
+
+"I also came to warn you," he said, furiously, "that I shall take the law
+into my own hands if you refuse."
+
+"Aye, aye," said Hardy, with careless contempt; "I'll tell him to keep
+out of your way.  But I should advise you to wait until I have sailed."
+
+Captain Nugent, who was moving towards the door, swung round and
+confronted him savagely.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"What I say," retorted Captain Hardy.  "I don't want to indulge Sunwich
+with the spectacle of two middle-aged ship-masters at fisticuffs, but
+that's what'll happen if you touch my boy.  It would probably please the
+spectators more than it would us."
+
+"I'll cane him the first time I lay hands on him," roared Captain Nugent.
+
+Captain Hardy's stock of patience was at an end, and there was, moreover,
+a long and undischarged account between himself and his late skipper.  He
+rose and crossed to the door.
+
+"Jem," he cried, "come downstairs and show Captain Nugent out."
+
+There was a breathless pause.  Captain Nugent ground his teeth with fury
+as he saw the challenge, and realized the ridiculous position into which
+his temper had led him; and the other, who was also careful of
+appearances, repented the order the moment he had given it.  Matters had
+now, however, passed out of their hands, and both men cast appraising
+glances at each other's form.  The only one who kept his head was Master
+Hardy, and it was a source of considerable relief to both of them when,
+from the top of the stairs, the voice of that youthful Solomon was heard
+declining in the most positive terms to do anything of the kind.
+
+Captain Hardy repeated his command.  The only reply was the violent
+closing of a door at the top of the house, and after waiting a short time
+he led the way to the front door himself.
+
+"You will regret your insolence before I have done with you," said his
+visitor, as he paused on the step.  "It's the old story of a beggar on
+horseback."
+
+"It's a good story," said Captain Hardy, "but to my mind it doesn't come
+up to the one about Humpty-Dumpty.  Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+If anything was wanted to convince Captain Nugent that his action had
+been foolish and his language intemperate it was borne in upon him by the
+subsequent behaviour of Master Hardy.  Generosity is seldom an attribute
+of youth, while egotism, on the other hand, is seldom absent.  So far
+from realizing that the captain would have scorned such lowly game,
+Master Hardy believed that he lived for little else, and his
+Jack-in-the-box ubiquity was a constant marvel and discomfort to that
+irritable mariner.  Did he approach a seat on the beach, it was Master
+Hardy who rose (at the last moment) to make room for him.  Did he stroll
+down to the harbour, it was in the wake of a small boy looking coyly at
+him over his shoulder.  Every small alley as he passed seemed to contain
+a Jem Hardy, who whizzed out like a human firework in front of him, and
+then followed dancing on his toes a pace or two in his rear.
+
+This was on week-days; on the Sabbath Master Hardy's daring ingenuity led
+him to still further flights.  All the seats at the parish church were
+free, but Captain Nugent, whose admirable practice it was to take his
+entire family to church, never thoroughly realized how free they were
+until Master Hardy squeezed his way in and, taking a seat next to him,
+prayed with unwonted fervour into the interior of a new hat, and then
+sitting back watched with polite composure the efforts of Miss Nugent's
+family to re-strain her growing excitement.
+
+Charmed with the experiment, he repeated it the following Sunday.  This
+time he boarded the seat from the other end, and seeing no place by the
+captain, took one, or more correctly speaking made one, between Miss
+Nugent and Jack, and despite the former's elbow began to feel almost like
+one of the family.  Hostile feelings vanished, and with an amiable smile
+at the half-frantic Miss Nugent he placed a "bull's-eye" of great
+strength in his cheek, and leaning forward for a hymn-book left one on
+the ledge in front of jack.  A double-distilled perfume at once assailed
+the atmosphere.
+
+Miss Nugent sat dazed at his impudence, and for the first time in her
+life doubts as to her father's capacity stirred within her.  She
+attempted the poor consolation of an "acid tablet," and it was at
+once impounded by the watchful Mrs. Kingdom.  Mean-time the reek of
+"bull's-eyes" was insufferable.
+
+The service seemed interminable, and all that time the indignant damsel,
+wedged in between her aunt and the openly exultant enemy of her House,
+was compelled to endure in silence.  She did indeed attempt one remark,
+and Master Hardy, with a horrified expression of outraged piety, said
+"H'sh," and shook his head at her.  It was almost more than flesh and
+blood could bear, and when the unobservant Mrs. Kingdom asked her for the
+text on the way home her reply nearly cost her the loss of her dinner.
+
+The _Conqueror,_ under its new commander, sailed on the day following.
+Mr. Wilks watched it from the quay, and the new steward observing him
+came to the side, and holding aloft an old pantry-cloth between his
+finger and thumb until he had attracted his attention, dropped it
+overboard with every circumstance of exaggerated horror.  By the time a
+suitable retort had occurred to the ex-steward the steamer was half a
+mile distant, and the extraordinary and unnatural pantomime in which he
+indulged on the edge of the quay was grievously misinterpreted by a
+nervous man in a sailing boat.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Wilks watched it from the quay."]
+
+Master Hardy had also seen the ship out, and, perched on the extreme end
+of the breakwater, he remained watching until she was hull down on the
+horizon.  Then he made his way back to the town and the nearest
+confectioner, and started for home just as Miss Nugent, who was about
+to pay a call with her aunt, waited, beautifully dressed, in the front
+garden while that lady completed her preparations.
+
+Feeling very spic and span, and still a trifle uncomfortable from the
+vigorous attentions of Ann, who cleansed her as though she had been a
+doorstep, she paced slowly up and down the path.  Upon these occasions of
+high dress a spirit of Sabbath calm was wont to descend upon her and save
+her from escapades to which in a less severe garb she was somewhat prone.
+
+She stopped at the gate and looked up the road.  Then her face flushed,
+and she cast her eyes behind her to make sure that the hall-door stood
+open.  The hated scion of the house of Hardy was coming down the road,
+and, in view of that fact, she forgot all else--even her manners.
+
+The boy, still fresh from the loss of his natural protector, kept a wary
+eye on the house as he approached.  Then all expression died out of his
+face, and he passed the gate, blankly ignoring the small girl who was
+leaning over it and apparently suffering from elephantiasis of the
+tongue.  He went by quietly, and Miss Nugent, raging inwardly that she
+had misbehaved to no purpose, withdrew her tongue for more legitimate
+uses.
+
+"Boo," she cried; "who had his hair pulled?"
+
+Master Hardy pursued the even tenor of his way.
+
+"Who's afraid to answer me for fear my father will thrash him?" cried the
+disappointed lady, raising her voice.
+
+This was too much.  The enemy retraced his steps and came up to the gate.
+
+"You're a rude little girl," he said, with an insufferably grown-up air.
+
+"Who had his hair pulled?" demanded Miss Nugent, capering wildly; "who
+had his hair pulled?"
+
+"Don't be silly," said Master Hardy.  "Here."  He put his hand in his
+pocket, and producing some nuts offered them over the gate.  At this Miss
+Nugent ceased her capering, and wrath possessed her that the enemy should
+thus misunderstand the gravity of the situation.
+
+"Well, give 'em to Jack, then," pursued the boy; "he won't say no."
+
+This was a distinct reflection on Jack's loyalty, and her indignation was
+not lessened by the fact that she knew it was true.
+
+"Go away from our gate," she stormed.  "If my father catches you, you'll
+suffer."
+
+"Pooh!" said the dare-devil.  He looked up at the house and then, opening
+the gate, strode boldly into the front garden.  Before this intrusion
+Miss Nugent retreated in alarm, and gaining the door-step gazed at him in
+dismay.  Then her face cleared suddenly, and Master Hardy looking over
+his shoulder saw that his retreat was cut off by Mr. Wilks.
+
+"Don't let him hurt me, Sam," entreated Miss Nugent, piteously.
+
+Mr. Wilks came into the garden and closed the gate behind him.
+
+"I wasn't going to hurt her," cried Master Hardy, anxiously; "as if I
+should hurt a girl!
+
+"Wot are you doing in our front garden, then?" demanded Mr. Wilks.
+
+He sprang forward suddenly and, catching the boy by the collar with one
+huge hand, dragged him, struggling violently, down the side-entrance into
+the back garden.  Miss Nugent, following close behind, sought to improve
+the occasion.
+
+"See what you get by coming into our garden," she said.
+
+The victim made no reply.  He was writhing strenuously in order to
+frustrate Mr. Wilks's evident desire to arrange him comfortably for the
+administration of the stick he was carrying.  Satisfied at last, the
+ex-steward raised his weapon, and for some seconds plied it briskly.
+Miss Nugent trembled, but sternly repressing sympathy for the sufferer,
+was pleased that the long arm of justice had at last over-taken him.
+
+"Let him go now, Sam," she said; "he's crying."
+
+"I'm not," yelled Master Hardy, frantically.
+
+"I can see the tears," declared Miss Nugent, bending.
+
+Mr. Wilks plied the rod again until his victim, with a sudden turn,
+fetched him a violent kick on the shin and broke loose.  The ex-steward
+set off in pursuit, somewhat handicapped by the fact that he dare not go
+over flower-beds, whilst Master Hardy was singularly free from such
+prejudices.  Miss Nugent ran to the side-entrance to cut off his retreat.
+She was willing for him to be released, but not to escape, and so it fell
+out that the boy, dodging beneath Mr. Wilks's outspread arms, charged
+blindly up the side-entrance and bowled the young lady over.
+
+There was a shrill squeal, a flutter of white, and a neat pair of button
+boots waving in the air.  Then Miss Nugent, sobbing piteously, rose from
+the puddle into which she had fallen and surveyed her garments.  Mr.
+Wilks surveyed them, too, and a very cursory glance was sufficient to
+show him that the case was beyond his powers.  He took the outraged
+damsel by the hand, and led her, howling lustily, in to the horrified
+Ann.
+
+"My word," said she, gasping.  "Look at your gloves!  Look at your
+frock!"
+
+But Miss Nugent was looking at her knees.  There was only a slight
+redness about the left, but from the right a piece of skin was
+indubitably missing.  This knee she gave Ann instructions to foment with
+fair water of a comfortable temperature, indulging in satisfied
+prognostications as to the fate of Master Hardy when her father should
+see the damage.
+
+The news, when the captain came home, was broken to him by degrees.
+He was first shown the flower-beds by Ann, then Mrs. Kingdom brought in
+various soiled garments, and at the psychological moment his daughter
+bared her knees.
+
+"What will you do to him, father?" she inquired.
+
+The captain ignored the question in favour of a few remarks on the
+subject of his daughter's behaviour, coupled with stern inquiries as to
+where she learnt such tricks.  In reply Miss Nugent sheltered herself
+behind a list which contained the names of all the young gentlemen who
+attended her kindergarten class and many of the young ladies, and again
+inquired as to the fate of her assailant.
+
+Jack came in soon after, and the indefatigable Miss Nugent produced her
+knees again.  She had to describe the injury to the left, but the right
+spoke for itself.  Jack gazed at it with indignation, and then, without
+waiting for his tea, put on his cap and sallied out again.
+
+He returned an hour later, and instead of entering the sitting-room
+went straight upstairs to bed, from whence he sent down word by the
+sympathetic Ann that he was suffering from a bad headache, which he
+proposed to treat with raw meat applied to the left eye.  His nose, which
+was apparently suffering from sympathetic inflammation, he left to take
+care of itself, that organ bitterly resenting any treatment whatsoever.
+
+He described the battle to Kate and Ann the next day, darkly ascribing
+his defeat to a mysterious compound which Jem Hardy was believed to rub
+into his arms; to a foolish error of judgment at the beginning of the
+fray, and to the sun which shone persistently in his eyes all the time.
+His audience received the explanations in chilly silence.
+
+"And he said it was an accident he knocked you down," he concluded; "he
+said he hoped you weren't hurt, and he gave me some toffee for you."
+
+"What did you do with it?"  demanded Miss Nugent.
+
+"I knew you wouldn't have it," replied her brother, inconsequently, "and
+there wasn't much of it."
+
+His sister regarded him sharply.
+
+"You don't mean to say you ate it?" she screamed.
+
+"Why not?" demanded her brother.  "I wanted comforting, I can tell you."
+
+"I wonder you were not too--too proud," said Miss Nugent, bitterly.
+
+"I'm never too proud to eat toffee," retorted Jack, simply.
+
+He stalked off in dudgeon at the lack of sympathy displayed by his
+audience, and being still in need of comforting sought it amid the
+raspberry-canes.
+
+His father noted his son's honourable scars, but made no comment.  As to
+any action on his own part, he realized to the full the impotence of a
+law-abiding and dignified citizen when confronted by lawless youth.  But
+Master Hardy came to church no more.  Indeed, the following Sunday he was
+fully occupied on the beach, enacting the part of David, after first
+impressing the raving Mr. Wilks into that of Goliath.
+
+[Illustration: "Master Hardy on the beach enacting the part of David."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+For the next month or two Master Hardy's existence was brightened by the
+efforts of an elderly steward who made no secret of his intentions of
+putting an end to it.  Mr. Wilks at first placed great reliance on the
+saw that "it is the early bird that catches the worm," but lost faith in
+it when he found that it made no provision for cases in which the worm
+leaning from its bedroom window addressed spirited remonstrances to the
+bird on the subject of its personal appearance.
+
+To the anxious inquiries of Miss Nugent, Mr. Wilks replied that he was
+biding his time.  Every delay, he hinted, made it worse for Master Hardy
+when the day of retribution should dawn, and although she pleaded
+earnestly for a little on account he was unable to meet her wishes.
+Before that day came, however, Captain Nugent heard of the proceedings,
+and after a painful interview with the steward, during which the latter's
+failings by no means escaped attention, confined him to the house.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Wilks replied that he was biding his time."]
+
+An excellent reason for absenting himself from school was thus denied to
+Master Hardy; but it has been well said that when one door closes another
+opens, and to his great satisfaction the old servant, who had been in
+poor health for some time, suddenly took to her bed and required his
+undivided attention.
+
+He treated her at first with patent medicines purchased at the chemist's,
+a doctor being regarded by both of them as a piece of unnecessary
+extravagance; but in spite of four infallible remedies she got steadily
+worse.  Then a doctor was called in, and by the time Captain Hardy
+returned home she had made a partial recovery, but was clearly incapable
+of further work.  She left in a cab to accept a home with a niece,
+leaving the captain confronted with a problem which he had seen growing
+for some time past.
+
+"I can't make up my mind what to do with you," he observed, regarding his
+son.
+
+"I'm very comfortable," was the reply.
+
+"You're too comfortable," said his father.
+
+You're running wild.  It's just as well poor old Martha has gone; it has
+brought things to a head."
+
+"We could have somebody else," suggested his son.
+
+The captain shook his head.  "I'll give up the house and send you to
+London to your Aunt Mary," he said, slowly; "she doesn't know you, and
+once I'm at sea and the house given up, she won't be able to send you
+back."
+
+Master Hardy, who was much averse to leaving Sunwich and had heard
+accounts of the lady in question which referred principally to her
+strength of mind, made tender inquiries concerning his father's comfort
+while ashore.
+
+"I'll take rooms," was the reply, "and I shall spend as much time as I
+can with you in London.  You want looking after, my son; I've heard all
+about you."
+
+His son, without inquiring as to the nature of the information, denied it
+at once upon principle; he also alluded darkly to his education, and
+shook his head over the effects of a change at such a critical period of
+his existence.
+
+"And you talk too much for your age," was his father's comment when he
+had finished.  "A year or two with your aunt ought to make a nice boy of
+you; there's plenty of room for improvement."
+
+He put his plans in hand at once, and a week before he sailed again had
+disposed of the house.  Some of the furniture he kept for himself; but
+the bulk of it went to his sister as conscience-money.
+
+Master Hardy, in very low spirits, watched it taken away.  Big men in
+hob-nailed boots ran noisily up the bare stairs, and came down slowly,
+steering large pieces of furniture through narrow passages, and using
+much vain repetition when they found their hands acting as fenders.  The
+wardrobe, a piece of furniture which had been built for larger premises,
+was a particularly hard nut to crack, but they succeeded at last--in
+three places.
+
+[Illustration: "A particularly hard nut to crack."]
+
+A few of his intimates came down to see the last of him, and Miss Nugent,
+who in some feminine fashion regarded the move as a triumph for her
+family, passed by several times.  It might have been chance, it might
+have been design, but the boy could not help noticing that when the
+piano, the wardrobe, and other fine pieces were being placed in the van,
+she was at the other end of the road a position from which such curios as
+a broken washstand or a two-legged chair never failed to entice her.
+
+It was over at last.  The second van had disappeared, and nothing was
+left but a litter of straw and paper.  The front door stood open and
+revealed desolation.  Miss Nugent came to the gate and stared in
+superciliously.
+
+"I'm glad you're going," she said, frankly.
+
+Master Hardy scarcely noticed her.  One of his friends who concealed
+strong business instincts beneath a sentimental exterior had suggested
+souvenirs and given him a spectacle-glass said to have belonged to Henry
+VIII., and he was busy searching his pockets for an adequate return.
+Then Captain Hardy came up, and first going over the empty house, came
+out and bade his son accompany him to the station.  A minute or two later
+and they were out of sight; the sentimentalist stood on the curb gloating
+over a newly acquired penknife, and Miss Nugent, after being strongly
+reproved by him for curiosity, paced slowly home with her head in the
+air.
+
+Sunwich made no stir over the departure of one of its youthful citizens.
+Indeed, it lacked not those who would have cheerfully parted with two or
+three hundred more.  The boy was quite chilled by the tameness of his
+exit, and for years afterwards the desolate appearance of the platform as
+the train steamed out occurred to him with an odd sense of discomfort.
+In all Sunwich there was only one person who grieved over his departure,
+and he, after keeping his memory green for two years, wrote off fivepence
+as a bad debt and dismissed him from his thoughts.
+
+Two months after the _Conqueror_ had sailed again Captain Nugent obtained
+command of a steamer sailing between London and the Chinese ports.  From
+the gratified lips of Mr. Wilks, Sunwich heard of this new craft, the
+particular glory of which appeared to be the luxurious appointments of
+the steward's quarters.  Language indeed failed Mr. Wilks in describing
+it, and, pressed for details, he could only murmur disjointedly of
+satin-wood, polished brass, and crimson velvet.
+
+Jack Nugent hailed his father's departure with joy.  They had seen a
+great deal of each other during the latter's prolonged stay ashore, and
+neither had risen in the other's estimation in consequence.  He became
+enthusiastic over the sea as a profession for fathers, and gave himself
+some airs over acquaintances less fortunately placed.  In the first flush
+of liberty he took to staying away from school, the education thus lost
+being only partially atoned for by a grown-up style of composition
+engendered by dictating excuses to the easy-going Mrs. Kingdom.
+
+At seventeen he learnt, somewhat to his surprise, that his education was
+finished.  His father provided the information and, simply as a matter of
+form, consulted him as to his views for the future.  It was an important
+thing to decide upon at short notice, but he was equal to it, and, having
+suggested gold-digging as the only profession he cared for, was promptly
+provided by the incensed captain with a stool in the local bank.
+
+[Illustration: "A stool in the local bank."]
+
+He occupied it for three weeks, a period of time which coincided to a day
+with his father's leave ashore.  He left behind him his initials cut
+deeply in the lid of his desk, a miscellaneous collection of cheap
+fiction, and a few experiments in book-keeping which the manager
+ultimately solved with red ink and a ruler.
+
+A slight uneasiness as to the wisdom of his proceedings occurred to him
+just before his father's return, but he comforted himself and Kate with
+the undeniable truth that after all the captain couldn't eat him.  He was
+afraid, however, that the latter would be displeased, and, with a
+constitutional objection to unpleasantness, he contrived to be out when
+he returned, leaving to Mrs. Kingdom the task of breaking the news.
+
+The captain's reply was brief and to the point.  He asked his son whether
+he would like to go to sea, and upon receiving a decided answer in the
+negative, at once took steps to send him there.  In two days he had
+procured him an outfit, and within a week Jack Nugent, greatly to his own
+surprise, was on the way to Melbourne as apprentice on the barque _Silver
+Stream_.
+
+He liked it even less than the bank.  The monotony of the sea was
+appalling to a youth of his tastes, and the fact that the skipper, a man
+who never spoke except to find fault, was almost loquacious with him
+failed to afford him any satisfaction.  He liked the mates no better than
+the skipper, and having said as much one day to the second officer, had
+no reason afterwards to modify his opinions.  He lived a life apart, and
+except for the cook, another martyr to fault-finding, had no society.
+
+In these uncongenial circumstances the new apprentice worked for four
+months as he had never believed it possible he could work.  He was
+annoyed both at the extent and the variety of his tasks, the work of an
+A.B. being gratuitously included in his curriculum.  The end of the
+voyage found him desperate, and after a hasty consultation with the cook
+they deserted together and went up-country.
+
+Letters, dealing mainly with the ideas and adventures of the cook,
+reached Sunwich at irregular intervals, and were eagerly perused by Mrs.
+Kingdom and Kate, but the captain forbade all mention of him.  Then they
+ceased altogether, and after a year or two of unbroken silence Mrs.
+Kingdom asserted herself, and a photograph in her possession, the only
+one extant, exposing the missing Jack in petticoats and sash, suddenly
+appeared on the drawing-room mantelpiece.
+
+The captain stared, but made no comment.  Disappointed in his son, he
+turned for consolation to his daughter, noting with some concern the
+unaccountable changes which that young lady underwent during his
+absences.  He noticed a difference after every voyage.  He left behind
+him on one occasion a nice trim little girl, and returned to find a
+creature all legs and arms.  He returned again and found the arms less
+obnoxious and the legs hidden by a long skirt; and as he complained in
+secret astonishment to his sister, she had developed a motherly manner
+in her dealings with him which was almost unbearable.
+
+"She'll grow out of it soon," said Mrs. Kingdom; "you wait and see."
+
+The captain growled and waited, and found his sister's prognostications
+partly fulfilled.  The exuberance of Miss Nugent's manner was certainly
+modified by time, but she developed instead a quiet, unassuming habit of
+authority which he liked as little.
+
+"She gets made such a fuss of, it's no wonder," said Mrs. Kingdom, with a
+satisfied smile.  "I never heard of a girl getting as much attention as
+she does; it's a wonder her head isn't turned."
+
+"Eh!" said the startled captain; "she'd better not let me see anything of
+it."
+
+"Just so," said Mrs. Kingdom.
+
+The captain dwelt on these words and kept his eyes open, and, owing to
+his daughter's benevolent efforts on his behalf, had them fully occupied.
+He went to sea firmly convinced that she would do something foolish in
+the matrimonial line, the glowing terms in which he had overheard her
+describing the charms of the new postman to Mrs. Kingdom filling him with
+the direst forebodings.
+
+It was his last voyage.  An unexpected windfall from an almost forgotten
+uncle and his own investments had placed him in a position of modest
+comfort, and just before Miss Nugent reached her twentieth birthday he
+resolved to spend his declining days ashore and give her those advantages
+of parental attention from which she had been so long debarred.
+
+Mr. Wilks, to the inconsolable grief of his ship-mates, left with him.
+He had been for nearly a couple of years in receipt of an annuity
+purchased for him under the will of his mother, and his defection left a
+gap never to be filled among comrades who had for some time regarded him
+in the light of an improved drinking fountain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+On a fine afternoon, some two months after his release from the toils
+of the sea, Captain Nugent sat in the special parlour of The Goblets.
+The old inn offers hospitality to all, but one parlour has by ancient
+tradition and the exercise of self-restraint and proper feeling been
+from time immemorial reserved for the elite of the town.
+
+The captain, confident in the security of these unwritten regulations,
+conversed freely with his peers.  He had been moved to speech by the
+utter absence of discipline ashore, and from that had wandered to the
+growing evil of revolutionary ideas at sea.  His remarks were much
+applauded, and two brother-captains listened with grave respect to a
+disquisition on the wrongs of shipmasters ensuing on the fancied
+rights of sailor men, the only discordant note being struck by the
+harbour-master, a man whose ideas had probably been insidiously sapped
+by a long residence ashore.
+
+"A man before the mast," said the latter, fortifying his moral courage
+with whisky, "is a human being."
+
+"Nobody denies it," said Captain Nugent, looking round.
+
+One captain agreed with him.
+
+"Why don't they act like it, then?" demanded the other.
+
+Nugent and the first captain, struck by the re-mark, thought they had
+perhaps been too hasty in their admission, and waited for number two to
+continue.  They eyed him with silent encouragement.
+
+"Why don't they act like it, then?"  repeated number two, who, being a
+man of few ideas, was not disposed to waste them.
+
+Captain Nugent and his friend turned to the harbour-master to see how he
+would meet this poser.
+
+"They mostly do," he replied, sturdily.  "Treat a seaman well, and he'll
+treat you well."
+
+This was rank heresy, and moreover seemed to imply something.  Captain
+Nugent wondered dismally whether life ashore would infect him with the
+same opinions.
+
+"What about that man of mine who threw a belaying-pin at me?"
+
+The harbour-master quailed at the challenge.  The obvious retort was
+offensive.
+
+"I shall carry the mark with me to my grave," added the captain, as a
+further inducement to him to reply.
+
+"I hope that you'll carry it a long time," said the harbour-master,
+gracefully.
+
+"Here, look here, Hall!" expostulated captain number two, starting up.
+
+"It's all right, Cooper," said Nugent.
+
+"It's all right," said captain number one, and in a rash moment undertook
+to explain.  In five minutes he had clouded Captain Cooper's intellect
+for the afternoon.
+
+He was still busy with his self-imposed task when a diversion was created
+by the entrance of a new arrival.  A short, stout man stood for a moment
+with the handle of the door in his hand, and then came in, carefully
+bearing before him a glass of gin and water.  It was the first time that
+he had set foot there, and all understood that by this intrusion Mr.
+Daniel Kybird sought to place sea-captains and other dignitaries on a
+footing with the keepers of slop-shops and dealers in old clothes.  In
+the midst of an impressive silence he set his glass upon the table and,
+taking a chair, drew a small clay pipe from his pocket.
+
+[Illustration: "A diversion was created by the entrance of a new
+arrival."]
+
+Aghast at the intrusion, the quartette conferred with their eyes, a
+language which is perhaps only successful in love.  Captain Cooper, who
+was usually moved to speech by externals, was the first to speak.
+
+"You've got a sty coming on your eye, Hall," he remarked.
+
+"I daresay."
+
+"If anybody's got a needle," said the captain, who loved minor
+operations.
+
+Nobody heeded him except the harbour-master, and he muttered something
+about beams and motes, which the captain failed to understand.  The
+others were glaring darkly at Mr. Kybird, who had taken up a newspaper
+and was busy perusing it.
+
+"Are you looking for anybody?" demanded Captain Nugent, at last.
+
+"No," said Mr. Kybird, looking at him over the top of his paper.
+
+"What have you come here for, then?" inquired the captain.
+
+"I come 'ere to drink two o' gin cold," returned Mr. Kybird, with a
+dignity befitting the occupation.
+
+"Well, suppose you drink it somewhere else," suggested the captain.
+
+Mr. Kybird had another supposition to offer.  "Suppose I don't?" he
+remarked.  "I'm a respect-able British tradesman, and my money is as good
+as yours.  I've as much right to be here as you 'ave.  I've never done
+anything I'm ashamed of!"
+
+"And you never will," said Captain Cooper's friend, grimly, "not if you
+live to be a hundred."
+
+Mr. Kybird looked surprised at the tribute.  "Thankee," he said,
+gratefully.
+
+"Well, we don't want you here," said Captain Nugent.  "We prefer your
+room to your company."
+
+Mr. Kybird leaned back in his chair and twisted his blunt features into
+an expression of withering contempt.  Then he took up a glass and drank,
+and discovered too late that in the excitement of the moment he had made
+free with the speaker's whisky.
+
+"Don't apologize," interrupted the captain; "it's soon remedied."
+
+He took the glass up gingerly and flung it with a crash into the
+fireplace.  Then he rang the bell.
+
+"I've smashed a dirty glass," he said, as the bar-man entered.  "How
+much?"
+
+The man told him, and the captain, after a few stern remarks about
+privacy and harpies, left the room with his friends, leaving the
+speechless Mr. Kybird gazing at the broken glass and returning evasive
+replies to the inquiries of the curious Charles.
+
+He finished his gin and water slowly.  For months he had been screwing up
+his courage to carry that room by assault, and this was the result.  He
+had been insulted almost in the very face of Charles, a youth whose
+reputation as a gossip was second to none in Sunwich.
+
+"Do you know what I should do if I was you?" said that worthy, as he
+entered the room again and swept up the broken glass.
+
+"I do not," said Mr. Kybird, with lofty indifference.
+
+"I shouldn't come 'ere again, that's what I should do," said Charles,
+frankly.  "Next time he'll throw you in the fireplace."
+
+"Ho," said the heated Mr. Kybird.  "Ho, will he?  I'd like to see 'im.
+I'll make 'im sorry for this afore I've done with 'im.  I'll learn 'im to
+insult a respectable British tradesman.  I'll show him who's who."
+
+"What'll you do?" inquired the other.
+
+"Never you mind," said Mr. Kybird, who was not in a position to satisfy
+his curiosity--"never you mind.  You go and get on with your work,
+Charles, and p'r'aps by the time your moustache 'as grown big enough to
+be seen, you'll 'ear something."
+
+"I 'eard something the other day," said the bar-man, musingly; "about you
+it was, but I wouldn't believe it."
+
+"Wot was it?" demanded the other.
+
+"Nothing much," replied Charles, standing with his hand on the door-knob,
+"but I wouldn't believe it of you; I said I couldn't."
+
+"Wot--was--it?" insisted Mr. Kybird.
+
+"Why, they said you once gave a man a fair price for a pair of trousers,"
+said the barman, indignantly.
+
+He closed the door behind him softly, and Mr. Kybird, after a brief
+pause, opened it again and, more softly still, quitted the precincts of
+The Goblets, and stepped across the road to his emporium.
+
+[Illustration: "He stepped across the road to his emporium."]
+
+Captain Nugent, in happy ignorance of the dark designs of the wardrobe
+dealer, had also gone home.  He was only just beginning to realize the
+comparative unimportance of a retired shipmaster, and the knowledge was
+a source of considerable annoyance to him.  No deferential mates listened
+respectfully to his instructions, no sturdy seaman ran to execute his
+commands or trembled mutinously at his wrath.  The only person in the
+wide world who stood in awe of him was the general servant Bella, and she
+made no attempt to conceal her satisfaction at the attention excited by
+her shortcomings.
+
+He paused a moment at the gate and then, walking slowly up to the door,
+gave it the knock of a master.  A full minute passing, he knocked again,
+remembering with some misgivings his stern instructions of the day before
+that the door was to be attended by the servant and by nobody else.  He
+had seen Miss Nugent sitting at the window as he passed it, but in the
+circumstances the fact gave him no comfort.  A third knock was followed
+by a fourth, and then a distressed voice upstairs was heard calling
+wildly upon the name of Bella.
+
+At the fifth knock the house shook, and a red-faced maid with her
+shoulders veiled in a large damp towel passed hastily down the staircase
+and, slipping the catch, passed more hastily still upstairs again,
+affording the indignant captain a glimpse of a short striped skirt as it
+turned the landing.
+
+"Is there any management at all in this house?" he inquired, as he
+entered the room.
+
+"Bella was dressing," said Miss Nugent, calmly, "and you gave orders
+yesterday that nobody else was to open the door."
+
+"Nobody else when she's available," qualified her father, eyeing her
+sharply.  "When I give orders I expect people to use their common sense.
+Why isn't my tea ready?  It's five o'clock."
+
+"The clock's twenty minutes fast," said Kate.  "Who's been meddling with
+it?" demanded her father, verifying the fact by his watch.
+
+Miss Nugent shook her head.  "It's gained that since you regulated it
+last night," she said, with a smile.
+
+The captain threw himself into an easy-chair, and with one eye on the
+clock, waited until, at five minutes to the hour by the right time, a
+clatter of crockery sounded from the kitchen, and Bella, still damp, came
+in with the tray.  Her eye was also on the clock, and she smirked weakly
+in the captain's direction as she saw that she was at least two minutes
+ahead of time.  At a minute to the hour the teapot itself was on the
+tray, and the heavy breathing of the handmaiden in the kitchen was
+audible to all.
+
+"Punctual to the minute, John," said Mrs. Kingdom, as she took her seat
+at the tray.  "It's wonderful how that girl has improved since you've
+been at home.  She isn't like the same girl."
+
+She raised the teapot and, after pouring out a little of the contents,
+put it down again and gave it another two minutes.  At the end of that
+time, the colour being of the same unsatisfactory paleness, she set the
+pot down and was about to raise the lid when an avalanche burst into the
+room and, emptying some tea into the pot from a canister-lid, beat a
+hasty re-treat.
+
+"Good tea and well-trained servants," muttered the captain to his plate.
+"What more can a man want?"
+
+Mrs. Kingdom coughed and passed his cup; Miss Nugent, who possessed a
+healthy appetite, serenely attacked her bread and butter; conversation
+languished.
+
+"I suppose you've heard the news, John?" said his sister.
+
+"I daresay I have," was the reply.
+
+"Strange he should come back after all these years," said Mrs. Kingdom;
+"though, to be sure, I don't know why he shouldn't.  It's his native
+place, and his father lives here."
+
+"Who are you talking about?" inquired the captain.
+
+"Why, James Hardy," replied his sister.  "I thought you said you had
+heard.  He's coming back to Sunwich and going into partnership with old
+Swann, the shipbroker.  A very good thing for him, I should think."
+
+"I'm not interested in the doings of the Hardys," said the captain,
+gruffly.
+
+"I'm sure I'm not," said his sister, defensively.
+
+Captain Nugent proceeded with his meal in silence.  His hatred of Hardy
+had not been lessened by the success which had attended that gentleman's
+career, and was not likely to be improved by the well-being of Hardy
+junior.  He passed his cup for some more tea, and, with a furtive glance
+at the photograph on the mantelpiece, wondered what had happened to his
+own son.
+
+"I don't suppose I should know him if I saw him," continued Mrs. Kingdom,
+addressing a respectable old arm-chair; "London is sure to have changed
+him."
+
+"Is this water-cress?" inquired the captain, looking up from his plate.
+
+"Yes.  Why?" said Mrs. Kingdom.
+
+"I only wanted information," said her brother, as he deposited the salad
+in question in the slop-basin.
+
+Mrs. Kingdom, with a resigned expression, tried to catch her niece's eye
+and caught the captain's instead.  Miss Nugent happening to glance up saw
+her fascinated by the basilisk glare of the master of the house.
+
+"Some more tea, please," she said.
+
+Her aunt took her cup, and in gratitude for the diversion picked out the
+largest lumps of sugar in the basin.
+
+"London changes so many people," mused the persevering lady, stirring her
+tea.  "I've noticed it before.  Why it is I can't say, but the fact
+remains.  It seems to improve them altogether.  I dare say that young
+Hardy--"
+
+"Will you understand that I won't have the Hardys mentiond in my house?"
+said the captain, looking up.  "I'm not interested in their business, and
+I will not have it discussed here."
+
+"As you please, John," said his sister, drawing herself up.  "It's your
+house and you are master here.  I'm sure I don't want to discuss them.
+Nothing was farther from my thoughts.  You understand what your father
+says, Kate?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Miss Nugent.  "When the desire to talk about the Hardys
+becomes irresistible we must go for a walk."
+
+The captain turned in his chair and regarded his daughter steadily.  She
+met his gaze with calm affection.
+
+"I wish you were a boy," he growled.
+
+"You're the only man in Sunwich who wishes that," said Miss Nugent,
+complacently, "and I don't believe you mean it.  If you'll come a little
+closer I'll put my head on your shoulder and convert you."
+
+"Kate!" said Mrs. Kingdom, reprovingly.
+
+"And, talking about heads," said Miss Nugent, briskly, "reminds me that I
+want a new hat.  You needn't look like that; good-looking daughters
+always come expensive."
+
+She moved her chair a couple of inches in his direction and smiled
+alluringly.  The captain shifted uneasily; prudence counselled flight,
+but dignity forbade it.  He stared hard at Mrs. Kingdom, and a smile of
+rare appreciation on that lady's face endeavoured to fade slowly and
+naturally into another expression.  The chair came nearer.
+
+"Don't be foolish," said the captain, gruffly.
+
+The chair came still nearer until at last it touched his, and then Miss
+Nugent, with a sigh of exaggerated content, allowed her head to sink
+gracefully on his shoulder.
+
+"Most comfortable shoulder in Sunwich," she murmured; "come and try the
+other, aunt, and perhaps you'll get a new bonnet."
+
+[Illustration: "'Most comfortable shoulder in Sunwich,' she murmured."]
+
+Mrs. Kingdom hastened to reassure her brother.  She would almost as soon
+have thought of putting her head on the block.  At the same time it was
+quite evident that she was taking a mild joy in his discomfiture and
+eagerly awaiting further developments.
+
+"When you are tired of this childish behaviour, miss," said the captain,
+stiffly----
+
+There was a pause.  "Kate!" said Mrs. Kingdom, in tones of mild reproof,
+how can you?"
+
+"Very good," said the captain, we'll see who gets tired of it first.  "I'm
+in no hurry."
+
+A delicate but unmistakable snore rose from his shoulder in reply.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Sunwich Port, Part 1., by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10871 ***