ly the T of his name could fairly be expected to have
reached him. Sir Tancred ground his teeth, and then he laughed.

Tinker made a circuit, and came down to the sea, where he found Elsie
playing with two little English girls staying at Arcachon with their
mother. At once she deserted them for him, and when he had withdrawn
her to a distance, he said, "I've hit on a way of getting them married."

"No! Have you? You are clever!" she cried with the ungrudging
admiration she always accorded him.

"Clever? It only wants a little common-sense," said Tinker with some
disdain.

"I shall be glad."

"So shall I. It'll be a weight off my mind, don't you know?" said
Tinker with a sigh.

"I'm sure it will," said the sympathetic Elsie.

"It must be awfully nice to be in love," she added with conviction.

"Now, look here," said Tinker in a terrible voice, "if I catch you
falling in love, I'll--I'll shake you!"

"But--but, I may be in love--ever so much, for anything you know," said
Elsie somewhat haughtily.

"You are not," said Tinker sternly. "Your appetite is all right.
Don't talk any more nonsense, but come along, we've got to get ready
for the picnic."

At half-past eleven the two children went on board the _Petrel_, a
little steam yacht of a shallow draught adapted to the shoals of the
Gulf, which Septimus Rainer had hired from a member of the Bordeaux
Yacht Club. They found Dorothy and Sir Tancred already on board, and
were told that a cablegram from New York had given her father, his
secretaries, and the telegraph office of Arcachon a day's work, and
prevented him from coming with them. Tinker had known this fact all
the morning, but he did not say so. His manner to his father showed a
serene unconsciousness of any cloud upon their relations.

The _Petrel_ was soon crossing the Gulf in an immensely important way,
at her full speed of eight knots an hour. In pursuance of his policy
Tinker took Elsie forward, and left Dorothy and his father to entertain
one another on the quarter-deck. The two children amused themselves
very well talking to Alphonse, the steersman, and Adolphe, the
engineer, thick-set, thick-witted men, who combined the picturesqueness
of organ-grinders with the stolidity of agriculturalists; Nature had
plainly intended them for the plough, and Circumstance had pitched them
into seafaring.

An hour's steering brought them across the Gulf. They landed, and made
their dejeuner at a l