ttered Josh. "The ignoramusness of these here London
folk, to _be_ sure."

"Could you row me and--say, my two sons--to one of the old mining shafts
after breakfast this morning?"

"Think your uncle would mind, Will?" said Josh.

"No," replied Will.

"Of course you will charge me for the hire of the boat," said Mr
Temple; "and here, my son ought to pay his share of the damage you met
with last night;" and he slipped half a sovereign in Dick's hand--a coin
he was about to transfer to Josh, but this worthy waved him off.

"No, no!" he said; "give it to young Will here. It ain't my boot, and
they warn't my oars; and very bad ones they were."

"Here, Will, take it," said Dick.

"What for? No, I sha'n't take it," said Will. "The old oars were good
for nothing, and we should have cut them up to burn next week. Give
Josh a shilling to make himself a new gaff, and buy a shilling's worth
of snooding and hooks for yourself. Uncle Abram wouldn't like me to
take anything, I'm sure."

Mr Temple did not press the matter, but making a final appointment for
the boat to be ready, he returned with Dick to the inn, where they had
hardly entered the sitting-room with its table invitingly spread for
breakfast, when Arthur came down, red-eyed, ill-used looking, and
yawning.

"Oh, you're down first," he said. "Is breakfast ready? I've got such a
bad headache."

"Then you had better go and lie down again, my boy," said his father;
"nothing like bed for a headache."

"Oh, but it will be better when I have had some breakfast. It often
aches like this when I come down first."

"Try getting up a little earlier, Arthur," said Mr Temple. "There, sit
down."

The coffee and some hot fried fish were brought in just then, and Arthur
forgot his headache, while Dick seemed almost ravenous, his father
laughing at the state of his healthy young appetite, which treated
slices of bread and butter in a wonderfully mechanical manner.

"Your walk seems to have sharpened you, Dick," he said.

"Oh, yes, I was so hungry."

"Have you been for a walk?" said Arthur, with his mouth full, and one
finger on an awkward starchy point of his carefully spread collar.

"Walk? Yes. We've been down to the harbour."

"Making arrangements for a boat to take us to two or three of the old
mines."

"You won't go in a boat again--after that accident?" said Arthur,
staring.

"Oh, yes! Such accidents are common at the sea-side, and people do not