"You didn' tell him about the _Saltypool?_" "As it happens, that's just what I did. He'd heard she was lost, but he'd no notion Rogers hadn't taken out an insurance on her, and he seemed quite fetched aback over it." "The devil!" "I'm sorry you feel like that about him. As I was tellin' him, when I heard your tap here at the window--" "But I don't--and I wasn' tappin' for you, either." "Appears not," said Mr Philp, with a glance at the empty glass in Cai's hand. "Where is he? Still in the garden, d'ye say?" "Ay: somewheres down by the summer-house. Says _I_, when I heard you tappin', 'That's Cap'n Hocken,' says I, 'signallin' me to come an wish him joy, an' maybe to join him in a drink over his luck. And why not?' says I. 'Stranger things have happened.'" "You'll excuse me. . . . If he's in his garden, I want a chat with him." Cai hurried out to the front door. "Maybe you'd like me to go with you," suggested Mr Philp, ready for him. "Maybe I'd like nothin' of the sort," snapped Cai. "Why should I?" "Well, if you ask _me_, he didn' seem in the best o' tempers, and it might come handy to take along a witness." "No, thank'ee," said Cai with some asperity. "You just run along and annoy somebody else." He descended the garden, to find 'Bias at the door of his summer-house, seated, and puffing great clouds of tobacco-smoke. "Good evenin'!" "Good evenin'," responded 'Bias in a tone none too hospitable. "You don't mind my havin' a word with you?" "Not if you'll make it short." "I've just come from Philp. He's been tellin' you about the _Saltypool_, it seems." "Well?" "She was uninsured." "And on top o' that, the fools overloaded her." "And 'tis a serious thing for Rogers." "Ruination, Philp tells me--that's if you choose to believe Philp." "I've better information than Philp's, I'm sorry to say." "Whose?" "Fancy Tabb's." "She didn' tell me so when I saw her to-day."--(And good reason for why, thought Cai.)--"Still, if she told you, you may lay there's some truth in it. That child don't speak at random. I don't see, though, as it makes much difference, up _or_ down?" "No difference?" "I didn' say 'no difference.' I said 'not much.' Ruination's not much to a man already down with a stroke." "Oh, . . . _him?_" said Cai. "To tell the truth, I wasn't thinkin' about Rogers, not at this moment." "No?" queried 'Bias sourly. "Then maybe I'm doin' you an injustice. I thought you might be pushin' your way in here to suggest our doin' something for the poor chap." Before Cai had well recovered from this, 'Bias went on, "And if so, I'd have answered you that I didn' intend to be any such fool." "I--I'm afraid," owned Cai, "my thought wasn' anything like so unselfish. It concerned you and me, rather."