now, sir, that's considerable
of a mistake; we understand smashing too,--ay, and better than folk in
the old country. Look you here, sir; if I mean to lose my ship on the
banks, or in an ice-drift, or any other way, I don't go and have her
built of strong oak plank and well-seasoned timber, copper-fastened,
and the rest of it; but I run her up with light pine, and cheap fixin's
everywhere. She not only goes to pieces the quicker, but there ain't
none of her found to tell where it happened, and how. That's how it
comes _we_ founder, and there 's no noise made about it; while one of
your chaps goes bumpin' on the rocks for weeks, with fellows up in the
riggin', and life-boats takin' 'em off, and such-like, till the town
talks of nothing else, and all the newspapers are filled with pathetic
incidents, so that the very fellows that calked her seams or wove her
canvas are held up to public reprobation. That's how you do it, sir, and
that's where you 're wrong. When a man builds a cardhouse, he don't want
iron fastenings. I've explained all to that crittur there, and he seems
to take it in wonderful." "Who is he--what is he?" asked Layton.

"His name's Trover; firm, Trover, Twist, and Co., Frankfort and
Florence, bankers, general merchants, rag exporters, commission agents,
doing a bit in the picture line and marble for the American market, and
sole agents for the sale of Huxley's tonic balsam. That's how he is,"
said the Colonel, reading the description from his note-book.

"I never heard of him before."

"He knows you, though,--knew you the moment he came aboard; said you
was tutor to a lord in Italy, and that he cashed you circular notes on
Stanbridge and Sawley. These fellows forget nobody."

"What does he know of the Heathcotes?"

"Pretty nigh everything. He knows that the old Baronet would be for
makin' a fortune out of his ward's money, and has gone and lost a good
slice of it, and that the widow has been doin' a bit of business in
the share-market, in the same profitable fashion,--not but she's a rare
wide-awake 'un, and sees into the 'exchanges' clear enough. As to the
gal, he thinks she sold her--"

"Sold her! What do you mean?" cried Layton, in a voice of horror.

"Jest this, that one of those theatrical fellows as buys singing-people,
and gets 'em taught,--it's all piping-bullfinch work with 'em,--has been
and taken her away; most probably cheap, too, for Trover said she was
n't nowise a rare article; she