an answer, was ye?"

"If I may venture to make so bowld as to say so in the presence of your
highness, I was."

"Then wait," said Haco, smiling a little less grimly.

"Thank ye, sir, for yer kind permission," said Dan in a tone and with an
air of assumed meekness.

The skipper returned to the bed, which creaked as if taxed to its
utmost, when he sat down on it, and drew Susan close to his side.

"This is from Mr Stuart, Haco," said I, running my eye hastily over the
note; "he consents to my sending the men in your vessel, but after what
you have told me--"

"Don't mind wot I told ye, Captain Bingley. I'll see Mr Stuart to-day,
an'll call on you in the afternoon. The `Coffin' ain't quite so bad as
she looks. Have 'ee any answer to send back?"

"No," said I, turning to Dan, who still stood at the door tapping his
right boot with a jaunty air; "tell your master, with my compliments,
that I will see him about this matter in the evening."

"And hark'ee, lad," cried Haco, again springing up and confronting the
groom, "d'ye see this young 'ooman?" (pointing to Susan.)

"Sure I do," replied Dan, with a smile and a nod to Susan, "an' a purty
cratur she is, for the eye of man to rest upon."

"And," shouted Haco, shaking his enormous fist within an inch of the
other's nose, "d'ye see them there knuckles?"

Dan regarded them steadfastly for a moment or two without winking or
flinching.

"They're a purty bunch o' fives," he said at length, drawing back his
head, and placing it a little on one side in order to view the "bunch,"
with the air of a connoisseur; "very purty, but raither too fat to do
much damage in the ring. I should say, now, that it would get `puffy'
at the fifth round, supposin' that you had wind and pluck left, at your
time of life, to survive the fourth."

"Well now, lad," retorted the skipper, "all I've to say is, that you've
seed it, an' if you don't mind yer eye ye'll _feel_ it. `A nod's as
good as a wink to a blind horse.'"

Haco plunged the "bunch of fives" into his coat-pocket, and sat down
again beside his agitated daughter.

"I can speak purfessionally," said Dan, "in regard to yer last
obsarvation consarnin' blind hosses, and I belave that ye're c'rect. It
_don't_ much matter whether ye nod or wink to a blind hoss; though I
can't spake from personal exparience 'caise I niver tried it on, not
havin' nothin' to do with blind hosses. Ye wouldn't have a weed, would
ye, skipper?" he a