rd something was heard brushing
softly against the wall of the passage. It ceased for a time, and
just as the captain's patience was nearly at an end there was a sharp
exclamation, and Mr. Walters burst suddenly into the room and looked
threateningly over his shoulder at somebody in the passage.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Captain Trimblett, loudly.

Mr. Walters eyed him uneasily, and with his cap firmly gripped in his
left hand saluted him with the right. Then he turned his head sideways
toward the passage. The captain repeated his question in a voice, if
anything, louder than before.

The strained appearance of Mr. Walters's countenance relaxed.

"Come here for my baccy-box, wot I left here the other day," he said,
glibly, "when you sent me."

"What were you making that infernal row about, then?" demanded the
captain.

Mr. Walters cast an appealing glance toward the passage and listened
acutely. "I was--grumbling because--I couldn't--find it," he said, with
painstaking precision.

"Grumbling?" repeated the captain. "That ugly voice of yours was enough
to bring the ceiling down. What was the matter with that man that burst
out of the gate as we came in, eh?"

The boatswain's face took on a wooden expression.

"He--his nose was bleeding," he said, at last.

"I know that," said the captain, grimly; "but what made it bleed?"

For a moment Mr. Walters looked like a man who has been given a riddle
too difficult for human solution. Then his face cleared again.

"He--he told me--he was object--subject to it," he stammered. "Been like
it since he was a baby."

He shifted his weight to his other foot and shrugged eloquently the
shoulder near the passage.

"What did you do to him?" demanded the captain, in a low, stern voice.

"Me, sir?" said Mr. Walters, with clumsy surprise. "Me, sir? I--I--all I
done--all I done--was ta put a door-key down his back."

"Door-key?" roared the captain.

"To--to stop the bleeding, sir," said Mr. Walters, looking at the floor
and nervously twisting his cap in his hands. "It's a old-fashioned--"

"That'll do," exclaimed the captain, in a choking voice, "that'll do.
I don't want any more of your lies. How dare you come to Mr. Hartley's
house and knock his milkman about, eh? How dare you? What do you mean by
it?"

Mr. Walters fumbled with his cap again. "I was sitting in the kitchen,"
he said at last, "sitting in the kitchen--hunting 'igh and low for my
baccy-box--whe