"Ah, well, so I think, too, Hellyer. Good-day to you, my man; I will come down again this evening when the tide makes. I fancy she'll break up then. Come on, boys!" sang out the old sailor in a higher key to Bob and Dick, who had been amusing themselves by trying to walk round the hull of the stranded steamer, now nearly high and dry on the beach; although the venturesome fellows had to clamber over all sorts of obstacles in the way of chain-cables and hawsers and other gear, besides wading through various pools of water to seaward, before they could congratulate themselves on effecting their object. "Come on now, my boys! There's nothing more to see at present; and I've promised Miss Nell to help her put those actinea we got yesterday at Seaview into her new aquarium." "But, you will come down again with us to see the wreck, won't you?" eagerly asked Bob, running after the Captain, who on giving this explanation of his desire of not wasting any more time on the beach just then, had started off already on his way back to the south parade, and was hobbling off at a fine rate across the common. "I do so want to see the poor vessel once more before they take her away, Captain!" "Humph!" grunted out the old sailor as he puffed and panted onward like a steam-engine, turning the services of his trusty old malacca cane to good account. "I don't think, my boy, you need have any fear on that score. The only shape in which she's likely to be taken away from her present berth will be--in pieces!" "By Jove, ma'am!" he exclaimed later on, when Mrs Gilmour and Nell met him at the gate of "the Moorings," "I might just as well board with you at once. Dined with you on Monday, to lunch Tuesday; at breakfast yesterday, and again this morning. Why, I'll eat you out of house and home!" "Never fear, Captain," said Mrs Gilmour smiling. "Sure, I'll take the risk of that." "But your servants, ma'am," he argued, as Nell took away his hat and cane. "I'm afraid I give them a lot of trouble, and they'll be springing a mutiny on you." "I don't know what poor Sarah'll do, sure; you've taised her so!" replied Mrs Gilmour jokingly. "But, Molly the cook's your friend, I know. She says you're the only one in the house that properly appreciates her curries." "Faith and she turns them out well, ma'am; and you can tell her so, with my compliments," said the old sailor with much heartiness as he winked to Nellie. "As for `that good Sarah,' ma'am, I shall have to make my peace with her by and by, with your permission." After breakfast, the Captain and Nellie, with the assistance of Bob and Dick, even "the good Sarah," too, being pressed into the service, set about preparing the sea-anemones and other specimens they had collected the previous day for their new home in the aquarium which Mrs Gilmour had bought for the purpose shortly before.