p. 25

“Still, any time you’re passing,” said the cook, “I’ll be pleased to welcome my stepdaughter and my son-in-law. I don’t bear no ill-will, and I shouldn’t like to think that others would.”

“Well, you’ve lost your berth on the ‘Alert,’ any way,” said Captain Gooster, inadequately. “You needn’t think I’d ’ave you now, because I shouldn’t!”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t accept it, in any case,” said Mr. Horace Dobb. “’Oo’s to look after the shop? You said yourself that it needed a man, and I’ve provided myself for it. And you know ’ow useful I can make myself, don’t you?”

That evening, when Messrs. Lock and Tridge and Clark, hearing something of what had transpired, trooped down to Fore Street to find Horace, they discovered him already engaged in bringing the stock and fixtures into line with his own ideas on such matters.

Very readily he told them the tale of his marriage, and, further, pointed out that the future might hold many occasions when his shipmates of the “Jane Gladys” might find it profitable to link their talents temporarily to the fortunes of the little second-hand shop.

But when Mr. Tridge remarked that the “Jane Gladys” was sailing early on the morrow, and that p. 26therefore a little loan would be both acceptable and timely to her crew, Mr. Horace Dobb did not reply in words.

p. 26

Instead, he stood erect and pointed over his shoulder, with a jerk of his thumb, at a notice which he had been at some pains to illuminate on a panel of wood, and which now hung conspicuously on the wall of the little shop.

Simultaneously, Messrs. Lock, Tridge, and Clark turned to regard the board. It bore the simple legend, “Strictly Business.”

p. 27EPISODE II A WATCHING BRIEF

p. 27

Mr. Peter Lock, in the bowels of the “Jane Gladys,” had attired himself for outdoor promenade with a meticulous attention to detail which had spurred Mr. Joseph Tridge to scornful mention of beauty-doctors and mashers and tailors’ dummies. Mr. Lock, in no wise offended by these oblique compliments to his appearance, had finally lingered for a full half-minute before the cracked little mirror in fastidious self-examination, and then had gone ashore for the express purpose of keeping an appointment with a friend. Five minutes later he reappeared. He explained 

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