Page:Youth, a narrative, and two other stories.djvu/231

 But for almost all of them one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a chance of annihilation.

As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl--

"What's this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you're selling the Fair Maid?"

Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done--money had been paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick looked well at the end of his time. Didn't he?

Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past.

The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the