Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/393

 With similar delicacy of feeling we now draw a curtain over the meeting of the mother and the long-lost child.

"It 's almost too much for me, tough old sea-dog though I am, this perpetual cruisin' about after strange runaway craft," said uncle Rik, as he and Letta walked hand in hand along the streets one day some weeks later. "Here have I been beatin' about for I don't know how long, and I 'm only in the middle of it yet. We expect the Fairy Queen in port to-night or to-morrow."

"But you won't hurt poor Stumps when you catch him, will you?" pleaded Letta, looking earnestly up into her companion's jovial face. "He was very nice and kind to me, you know, on Pirate Island."

"No, I 'll not hurt him, little old woman," said Rik. "Indeed, I don't know yet for certain that Stumps is a thief; it may be Shunks or it may be Gibson, you see, who is the thief. However, we 'll find out before long. Now then, good-bye, I 'll be back soon."

He shook hands with Letta at Mr. Wright's house, she and her mother having agreed to reside there until Robin's return home.

Wending his way through the streets until he reached one of the great arteries of the metropolis, he got into a 'bus and soon found himself on the