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, when he heard their plans. I don't know a trip that I'd enjoy much better myself. There's something about the South Seas that gets you—a sort of mystery. By the way, Dave, I don't want you to think I 've forgotten that little thing you did for me when I toppled over into the dock." His hand went towards his pocketbook, where he always kept a roll of bills, but a look of dismay came into the boy's face.

"That was nothing. Anybody would have done it," Dave said.

"It may have meant nothing to you, my boy," Captain Grummitt replied with a grin, "but I still feel powerfully obliged, if it's all the same to you, and I'd like you to keep something of mine as a souvenir." Acting on a happy impulse, he drew from his pocket a plain silver watch and handed it to the boy. "It is n't the value of the thing I want you to remember, lad, so much as the idea of the thing. It's a mark of an old sailor's gratitude."