"Yes, you have us there," Tudor admitted. "But you wouldn't have had us if you hadn't broken your training rules." "How do you mean?" "By talking about it." Joan clapped her hands in approval. Tudor lighted a fresh cigarette, while Sheldon sat on, imperturbably silent. "He got you there," Joan challenged. "Why don't you crush him?" "Really, I can't think of anything to say," Sheldon said. "I know my position is sound, and that is satisfactory enough." "You might retort," she suggested, "that when an adult is with kindergarten children he must descend to kindergarten idioms in order to make himself intelligible. That was why you broke training rules. It was the only way to make us children understand." "You've deserted in the heat of the battle, Miss Lackland, and gone over to the enemy," Tudor said plaintively. But she was not listening. Instead, she was looking intently across the compound and out to sea. They followed her gaze, and saw a green light and the loom of a vessel's sails. "I wonder if it's the _Martha_ come back," Tudor hazarded. "No, the sidelight is too low," Joan answered. "Besides, they've got the sweeps out. Don't you hear them? They wouldn't be sweeping a big vessel like the _Martha_." "Besides, the _Martha_ has a gasoline engine--twenty-five horse-power," Tudor added. "Just the sort of a craft for us," Joan said wistfully to Sheldon. "I really must see if I can't get a schooner with an engine. I might get a second-hand engine put in." "That would mean the additional expense of an engineer's wages," he objected. "But it would pay for itself by quicker passages," she argued; "and it would be as good as insurance. I know. I've knocked about amongst reefs myself. Besides, if you weren't so mediaeval, I could be skipper and save more than the engineer's wages."