t propose to return."

He paused, weighing my words; obviously puzzled, but politely anxious to
understand. His eyes were grey and honest, even childishly honest, but
dulled about the rim of the iris and a trifle vacant, as though the
world with its train of affairs had passed beyond his active concern. I
keep my own eyes about me when I travel, and have surprised just such a
look, before now, behind the spectacles of very old men who sit by the
roadside and break stones for a living.

"I fear, sir, that I do not take you precisely."

"Why," said I, "if I may guess, this is one of the famous Falmouth
packets?"

"As to that, sir, you are right, and yet wrong. She _was_ a packet, and
(if I may say it) a famous one." His gaze travelled aloft, and
descending rested on mine with a sort of gentle resignation. "But the
old pennon is down, as you see. At present she sails on a private
adventure, and under private commission."

"A privateer?"

"You may call it that."

"The adventure hits my humour even more nicely. Accept me, Captain----"

"Colenso."

"Accept me, Captain Colenso, for your passenger: I will not say
comrade-in-arms--naval warfare being so far beyond my knowledge, which
it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I can pay--"
I thrust a hand nervously into my breast-pocket, and blessed Flora for
her waterproof bag. "Excuse me, Captain, if I speak with my friend here
in private for a moment."

I drew Byfield aside. "Your notes? The salt water----"

"You see," said he, "I am a martyr to acidity of the stomach."

"Man! do I invite the confidence of your stomach?"

"Consequently I never make an ascension unaccompanied by a small bottle
of Epsom salts, tightly corked."

"And you threw away the salts and substituted the notes?--that was
clever of you, Byfield."

I lifted my voice. "And Mr. Dalmahoy, I presume, returns to his
sorrowing folk?"

The extravagant cheerfully corrected me. "They will not sorrow: but I
shall return to them. Of their grudged pension I have eighteenpence in
my pocket. But I propose to travel with Sheepshanks, and raise the wind
by showing his tricks. He shall toss the caber from Land's End to
Forthside, cheered by the plaudits of the intervening taverns and
furthered by their bounty."

"A progress which we must try to expedite, if only out of regard for
Mrs. Sheepshanks." I turned to Captain Colenso again. "Well, sir, will
you accept me for your passenger?"