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 Widgins has promised to help me whenever it's necessary. You needn't expect to cheat him!"

Touchtone's heart sank. Belmont had been before him. The captain's conduct at supper was suspicion, not kindness! Yet this man was equal to any lie that might terrify his victim. He remembered that. It gave him comfort.

"To cheat the captain? I don't believe you have dared to!" he answered. "You can no more prove any thing of the sort than you can prove that you own this boat. I challenge you or any one else! Say what you like, do what you like, you have no business with Gerald Saxton! Do you mean to claim that he is some relation to you? that he isn't traveling on this steamer with me, by his father's direction? that I can't show how it comes to be so, and where we are going? Why," concluded Touchtone, in rising wrath, "you will accuse me next of kidnapping him."

"Exactly," replied Belmont; "and that, you know, is just what you are about. Now don't fly out so quickly again, Touchtone. It really won't clear your ideas, and you will want