Dick was commencing an abject apology, but Mrs Gilmour stopped him. "Oh, never mind the Captain," she said laughing at the poor lad's look of contrition. "He's only `taking a rise' out of you, as he would call it." "Humph! is he?" growled the Captain, blinking away and pretending to be very serious. "But, come now, we must be off. I want you to go along with me into Portsmouth; so, get your cap and we'll start at once." "Mayn't we come too?" shouted Bob and Nellie in one breath together. "Do say yes, Captain Dresser!" "Well, I don't know about you, Miss Nellie, for I may have to go into places where little girls may be in the way; besides which, I don't think you would like to leave your aunt all alone, eh?" "Of course not, dear Captain, I forgot that," said Nellie, accepting this quiet suggestion of the old sailor as a final settlement of the question, without betraying a particle of ill-temper or dissatisfaction. "I will stop with auntie." "Ah, you shan't lose anything by doing it, me darlint," smilingly said Mrs Gilmour, giving her an approving little pat on the cheek by way of caress. "You and I, Nell, may have a little expedition of our own, perhaps." "But I may go with you and Dick," interposed Bob, by no means content to be left behind. "Mayn't I, Captain?" "Oh yes, you may go or come, just as you please to call it," replied the Captain, making a move towards the door, with an energetic thump of his malacca cane on the floor. "Look sharp, though, or it will be midday before we're out of the house!" This contingency, however, did not happen, for within a minute or so he and the two boys were out on the parade; the party being further increased by the presence of Rover, who had been lurking in the passage and followed them out unobserved. Not a bark or a gambol betrayed that he was after them, until the Captain on turning round suddenly saw him in their rear, close up to Bob's heels. "Hullo!" he exclaimed; "I can't have that dog with us. Rover is a very fine fellow and a brave animal too; but, he's somewhat skittish as yesterday's proceedings at the railway-station showed me. I don't want to get into any more scrapes with him, such as knocking down harmless old women--she was a tartar, though, by Jove! Besides, I may have to go into the dockyard, and they do not allow dogs in there." "Don't they?" asked Bob, catching hold of Rover's collar and preparing to take him back to the house. "Not even if they're well-behaved?" "No, my boy, they draw the line at puppies! I mean those jackanapes of midshipmen and sub-lieutenants, as they call mates now, with their dandified airs. In my time, the reefers weren't half so conceited and didn't try to turn themselves into land swabs as they do now-a-days," said the Captain grimly, he being, like most sailors of the old school, a thorough believer in the times gone by. "But, go back now, and take that rascal of a dog in. Dick and I will wait for you at the corner."