"_Tom!_" Pearl's scorn pricked the shell of Tom's conceit. The look she gave the lout seared his very soul. "Oh, yes!" he said harshly. "Think you're fit for something better than me, don't you? Ain't got no more use for me." "Tom Petty!" shrilled his mother. "No. I've no use for you," Pearl said, driven to desperation by her wrongs. "You can give me the money you borrowed of me to pay your gambling debts, and your mother can set me free. I'll go fast enough then, and thank you both." "What's that? What do you mean?" shrieked Sarah Petty. She sprang from the chair she had seated herself in but the moment before and darted at the girl, her fingers crooked and extended like talons. Sarah Petty's instincts were primeval. But before she reached her victim the door at the foot of the rear staircase was burst open and Cap'n Jonah in his shirt and trousers, and with his stockinet nightcap on his head, thrust himself before the girl. "Belay that!" he commanded in a deep-sea growl. "What's goin' on here? Ain't you satisfied, Sarah Petty, to work this gal double tides, without bringin' her to the mast ev'ry now an' then for a taste of the cat? I tell ye, I won't stand no more of it." [Illustration: "Belay that!" he commanded in a deep sea growl.] "You--you----" Sarah Petty could not find an expression to fit the occasion. Or else caution held her tongue with a sudden grip. "Did you hear what the little minx just said?" "Yes," replied Cap'n Jonah. "I heard her. I heard her say that she lent money to Tom Petty to pay back to the Ladies Aid money that he'd took an' gambled away at the cattle show. And it s'prised me jest as much as it does you, Sarah." He spoke more mildly, but his eyes flamed as he held the shrinking Tom with their gaze. "She'd oughter be thrashed, old as she is!" cried Sarah Petty. "I dunno but she had," agreed Cap'n Jonah, "for ever lending him a penny, anyway. I thought I'd headed off the young sculpin from borryin' of Pearly at all." "What's that you say?" demanded his niece. "The little liar----" "You air speakin' of Tom, ain't you, Sarah?" interrupted the master mariner boldly. "It ain't Pearly that's lied. I heard it all from my chamber winder. It was the first night I come here. Tom got into a pea-and-shell game at that fair and lost ev'ry dollar he had--Ladies Aid money and all. "He whined around Pearly like a whipped puppy until the gal promised to lend him enough to pay you back, out of the little tad of money she'd saved up. I couldn't hear to that, you know," continued Cap'n Jonah, with less acrimony. "So I caught Tom airly the next mornin' and made him a present so't he wouldn't be tempted, as _I_ thought, to take money from the gal. But I didn't know the feller as well as I do now," and the mariner's scorn was biting. "Did he take your money that time, after all, Pearly?" The girl, now unable to speak for the swelling of her throat, nodded.