captain with a very deferential bow.

"There is an error in the copy of the letter you gave me—in the extract. If you will give me the original letter from Mr. Warnock, I will correct the mistake," Christy read on the tablet. It was not impossible that he had made a mistake in copying his letter; but the object of Mulgrum in desiring to see the original of the letter from England was sufficiently apparent. "Bring me my copy of the letter," he wrote on the tablet, and handed it back to the owner.

The captain took from his desk a bundle of letters and selected one, which he opened and laid on the table, though not where his copyist could see it. Mulgrum returned and presented 116 him the letter, pointing out the mistake he had discovered. He looked at the blind letter, and then at the other. There was certainly an error, for his letter said "and they comprise about one of crew of each vessel." This was nonsense, for he had accidentally omitted the word "half" after "one." He inserted the word above the line in its proper place, and gave it back to the copyist. It was clear enough that Mulgrum was disappointed in the result of this interview; but he took the letter and returned to the table.

116

At the end of another quarter of an hour, he brought the first copy of the letter. He knocked as before, and though Christy told him in a loud tone to come in, he did not do so. He repeated the words, but the conspirator, possibly aware of the blunder he had made before, did not make it again. Then he wrote on his tablet, after the captain had approved his work, that he found the table very uncomfortable to write upon while the ship was pitching so smartly, and suggested that he should be allowed to make the rest of the copies on the desk in the state room, if the captain did not desire to use it himself. Unfortunately for the writer, he did desire to use it himself, and 117 he could not help smiling at the enterprise of the deaf mute in his attempt to obtain an opportunity to forage among the papers in his drawers.

117

Mulgrum certainly did his work nicely and expeditiously, for he had finished it at three bells in the forenoon watch. He was dismissed then, for his presence was not particularly agreeable to the commander. Christy locked his desk and all the drawers that contained papers, not as against a thief or a burglar, but against one who would scorn to appropriate anything of value that did not belong to him, for he had no doubt now that Mulgrum was a gentleman who was 

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