As we bent to our work, Mr. Cledd remarked with a dry smile, "I'm thinking, sir, there's going to be more of a sting to this pirate-and-mutiny business than I'd believed. That smug, sarcastic young man means trouble or I've no eye for weather." "He's the worst of all the Websters," Roger replied thoughtfully. "And I'll confess that Captain Craigie's story knocks the wind out of _my_ canvas. Who'd have looked for a garbled story of our misfortunes to outsail us? However,--" he shook his head and brushed away all such anxieties,--"time will tell. Now, gentlemen, to our accounts." Before we had more than got well started, I heard a voice on deck that brought me to my feet. There was a step on the companionway, and then, "Father!" I cried, and leaped up with an eagerness that, boy-like, I thought I concealed with painstaking dignity when I shook his hand. "Come, come, come, you young rascals!" my father cried. "What's the meaning of this? First hour in the home port and you are as busy at your books as if you were old students like myself. Come, put by your big books and your ledgers, lads. Roger, much as I hate to have to break bad news, your family are all in Boston, so--more joy to us!--there's nothing left but you shall come straight home with Benny here. Unless, that is--" my father's eyes twinkled just as Roger's sometimes did--"unless you've more urgent business elsewhere." "I thank you, sir," said Roger, "but I have _no_ more urgent business, and I shall be--well, delighted doesn't half express it." His manner was collected enough, but at my father's smile he reddened and his own eyes danced. "Pack away your books and come along, then. There's some one will be glad to see you besides Benny's mother. Leave work till morning. I'll wager come sun-up you'll be glad enough to get to your tasks if you've had a little home life meanwhile. Come, lads, come." Almost before we fully could realize what it meant, we were walking up to the door of my own home, and there was my mother standing on the threshold, and my sister, her face as pink now as it had been white on the day long ago when she had heard that Roger was to sail as supercargo. Many times more embarrassed than Roger, whom I never had suspected of such shamelessness, I promptly turned my back on him and my sister; where upon my father laughed aloud and drew me into the house. From the hall I saw the dining-table laid with our grandest silver, and, over all, the towering candle-sticks that were brought forth only on state occasions. "And now, lads," said my father, when we sat before such a meal as only returning prodigals can know, "what's this tale of mutiny and piracy with which the town's been buzzing these two weeks past? Trash, of course." "Why, sir, I think we've done the right thing," said Roger, "and yet I can't say that it's trash." When my father had heard the story he said so little that he frightened me; and my mother and sister exchanged anxious glances.