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 fax that he had pawned all his possessions? The captain would think him a thief as well as a liar, yet he could no more have lied at this juncture than he could have poisoned the food.

"Was your father Captain Andrew Minas?" the old man asked.

"Yes, sir."

"How many other lies have you told me?"

Paul's eyes dropped. "None, sir, since leaving port."

The captain replaced the watch on the dresser. "See here, boy," he admonished, "you've done your work ship-shape, and I'm not finding fault. But you take and count ten before ever you go telling me any more fantastical yarns. What's more, don't leave that lying about. It ain't as though it was an ordinary timepiece."

"No, sir."

"Away now to that job of varnishing."

As he was leaving, Paul couldn't resist one question. "Did you know my father, sir?"

"Can't say I ever knew a drunken lumber-jack by the name of Laval," replied the old man.

Since that memorable day the captain's attitude had been less forbidding, though he was as impersonal as ever, and Paul redoubled in diligence. But the captain had made new concessions and Paul felt that an ordinary steward would not have been given lessons in the science of navigation nor allowed to take the sun with an extra sextant. The old man had explained the chronometers and compass, had entrusted him with the log-line, and even let him take the wheel on occasion. He had also turned over to Paul the slop-chest accounts, and every Saturday night, when the men came slouching aft for tobacco, clay pipes, knives, caps, and dungarees, it was Paul who acted as shopkeeper and importantly noted the debits in the captain's book.

Paul also recognized a special concession in the Cap-