Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/113

Rh Baxter, has any designs upon your young swell, Beckenham, or whatever his name may be?"

"What makes you stand by to shorten sail when you see a suspicious look about the sky? Instinct, isn't it?"

"That's a poor way out of the argument, to my thinking."

"Well, at any rate, time will show how far I'm right or wrong; though I don't suppose I shall hear any more of the affair, as I return to Australia in the Saratoga on Friday next."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"I haven't the remotest idea. My business is completed and I'm just kicking my heels in idleness till Friday comes and it is time for me to set off for Plymouth."

"Then I have it. You'll just come along down to the docks with me; I'm due back at the old hooker at five sharp. You'll dine with us—pot luck, of course. Your old friend Riley is still chief officer; I'm second; young Cleary, whom you remember as apprentice, is now third, and, if I'm not very much mistaken, we'll find old Donald Maclean aboard too, tinkering away at his beloved engines. I don't believe that fellow could take a holiday away from his thrust blocks and piston rods if he were paid to. We'll have a palaver about old times, and I'll put you ashore myself when you want to go. There, what do you say?"

"I'm your man," said I, jumping at his offer, with an alacrity that must have been flattering to him.

The truth was, I was delighted to have secured some sort of companionship, for London, despite its multitudinous places of amusement, and its five millions of inhabitants, is but a dismal caravanserai to be left alone