However _my_ troubles weren't seemingly over yet, for just then up came the Judge's dark kitmagar to the gangway where I was, and, from the sly impudence of the fellow's manner, I at once fancied there was something particular in the wind, as if he'd been seeking me about-decks. "S'laam, mistree!" said he, with but a slight duck of his flat brown turban, "Judge sahib i-send Culley Mistree his chupprass,"--_message_, forsooth!--"sah'b inquire the flavour of gentlyman's Ees-Inchee Coompanee, two-three moment!" "The flavour of my East-India company, you rascal!" said I laughing, yet inclined to kick him aft again for his impertinent look; "speak for yourself, if you please!" In fact the whiff of cocoa-nut oil, and other dark perfumes about him, came out in a hot calm at sea, when everything sickens one, so as to need no inquiry about the matter: however, I walked straight aft to the round-house, and in at the open door, through which Sir Charles was to be seen pacing from one side of his cabin to the other, like a Bengal tiger in a cage. "Harkye, young man," said he sternly, turning as soon as I came in, with my hat in my hand, "since I had the honour of your company here this morning, I have recollected--indeed I find that one of my servants had done the same--that you are the person who molested my family by various annoyances beside my garden at Croydon, sir!" "Indeed, Sir Charles!" said I coolly, for the bitter feeling I had made me cool: "they must have been unintentional then, sir! But I was certainly at Croydon, seeing my mother's house happens to be there." "You must have had some design in entering this vessel, sir!" continued the Judge, in a passion; "'gad sir, the coincidence is too curious! Tell me what it is at once, or by --" "My design was to go to India, sir," answered I, as quietly as before. "In what capacity?--who are you?--what--who--what do you want _there_, eh?" rapped out the Judge. "I'm not aware, sir," said I, "what right you've got to, question me; but I--in fact I'll tell _so_ much to any man--why, I'm an officer in the navy." Sir Charles brought short up in his pacing and stamping, and stared at me. "An officer in the navy!" repeated he; "but yes--why--now I think, I do, remember something in your dress, sir,--though it was the _face_ that struck me! In short then, sir, this makes, the case worse: you are here on false pretences--affecting the very reverse, sir--setting yourself up for a model of simplicity,--a laughing-stock indeed!" "I had reasons for not wishing my profession to be known, Sir Charles," said I; "most special reasons. They're now over, however, and I don't care _who_ knows it!" "May I ask what these were?" said the Judge. "_That_ I'll never tell to any man breathing!" I said, determinedly. The Judge walked two or three times fore and aft; then a thought seemed to strike him--he looked out as if at the decks and through below the awnings, then shut the door and came back to me again.