The man who sat there was dark, and ill-shaven, and bearded, and his hair was touched with gray. His leathern coat was worn and stained, and his great boots were muddied. Yet Merrylips did not doubt that he was commander in that place. This was the man whom even her big brother feared--the dreaded Captain Tibbott Norris. For a moment Captain Norris looked at Merrylips, and she looked bravely back at him, for all that she breathed a little faster. "So you're Venner's brother!" he said at last. "Well, an you grow to be as gallant a lad as Venner, your kinsmen need find no fault in you." When Merrylips heard Captain Norris, whom Munn had feared, praise him so generously, now that he was gone, she wanted to cry. But she blinked fast and said, with only a little quaver:-- "I thank you--for my brother's sake, sir!" Captain Norris noticed the struggle that she made. Into his sombre eyes there came a spark of interest. "How do they call ye, lad?" he asked. Before she had thought, out popped her own name. "Merrylips, an't like you, sir." She heard a chuckle go round the table. She did not realize that Merrylips was a nickname that might be given to a boy as well as to a girl. So she did not dream that the officers were laughing at a little boy who told his pet-name to strangers. Instead she thought that she had told her secret and that they knew her for a girl. At that she was so frightened that she hardly knew what she did. Captain Norris broke out impatiently:-- "No, no, ye little bufflehead! I asked your given name." In her fright Merrylips could think of but one name, among all the boys' names in the world. That was the one that had so taken her fancy the day before. She knew that she must not say it. But while she was thinking how dreadful it would be if she did say it, she let it slip off her tongue:-- "Tibbott, sir." Then indeed she knew that Captain Norris would be angry at her for taking his name. She would have run away, if she had not been too scared to move. Strangely enough, Captain Norris did not seem angry. He stared at her for a moment. Then he gave a sort of laugh, which the men around him echoed. Indeed, to them it seemed droll, that such a scrap of a lad should bear the very name that Captain Norris had made feared through all the countryside. "My namesake, are you?" said Captain Norris. He laid a hand on Merrylips' shoulder, but not unkindly, and drew her to him. [Illustration: HE LAID A HAND ON MERRYLIPS' SHOULDER AND DREW HER TO HIM.] "Sit you down, sir," he bade, "and do me the honor to dine with me, Master Tibbott." So Merrylips sat beside Captain Norris, on the form at the head of the table, and ate her share of the bakemeat, like a soldier and a gentleman. She meant to be as still as a mouse, for she bore in mind all Munn's warnings. But when she was spoken to, she had to answer, and she was spoken to a great deal.