At these touching words Miss Nugent was undisguisedly affected, and wiping her bright eyes with her pinafore, gave her small, well-shaped nose a slight touch en passant with the same useful garment, and squeezed his arm affectionately. “It’s a lively look-out for me if father is going to be at home for long,” remarked Master Nugent. “Who’ll get his ship, Sam?” “Shouldn’t wonder if the fust officer, Mr. Hardy, got it,” replied the steward. “He was going dead-slow in the fog afore he sent down to rouse your father, and as soon as your father came on deck ’e went at ’arfspeed. Mr. Hardy was commended, and your father’s certifikit was suspended for six months.” Master Nugent whistled thoughtfully, and quitting the kitchen proceeded upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair. He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding. While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some trepidation to the conversation. “Is that steward of mine still in the kitchen?” demanded the captain, gruffly. “Yessir,” said Ann. “What’s he doing?” Mr. Wilks’s ears quivered anxiously, and he eyed with unwonted disfavour the evidences of his late debauch. “Sitting down, sir,” replied Ann. “Give him a glass of ale and send him off,” commanded the captain; “and if that was Miss Kate I heard talking, send her in to me.” Ann took the message back to the kitchen and, with the air of a martyr engaged upon an unpleasant task, drew Mr. Wilks another glass of ale and stood over him with well-affected wonder while he drank it. Miss Nugent walked into the sitting-room, and listening in a perfunctory fashion to a shipmaster’s platitude on kitchen-company, took a seat on his knee and kissed his ear. CHAPTER II The downfall of Captain Nugent was for some time a welcome subject of conversation in marine circles at Sunwich. At The Goblets, a rambling old inn with paved courtyard and wooden galleries, which almost backed on to the churchyard, brother-captains attributed it to an error of judgment; at the Two Schooners on the quay the profanest of sailormen readily attributed it to an all-seeing Providence with a dislike of over-bearing ship-masters. The captain’s cup was filled to the brim by the promotion of his first officer to the command of the _Conqueror_. It was by far the largest craft which sailed from the port of Sunwich, and its master held a corresponding dignity amongst the captains of lesser vessels. Their allegiance was now transferred to Captain Hardy, and the master of a brig which was in the last stages of senile decay, meeting Nugent in The Goblets, actually showed him by means of two lucifer matches how the collision might have been avoided. [Illustration: “A welcome subject of conversation in marine circles.”]