In an agony of mortification and rage, as he saw the joy depicted on the faces of the crew, the boy let the question pass. The cook, at the skipper’s invitation, followed him below, his reappearance being the signal for anxious inquiries on the part of his friends. He answered them by slapping his pocket, and then thrusting his hand in produced five gold pieces. At first it was all congratulations, then Sam, after a short, hard, cough, struck a jarring note. “Don’t you wish now as you’d joined the syndikit, Dick?” he asked boldly. “_Wot?_” said the cook, hastily replacing the coins. “I arst ’im whether he was sorry ’e ’adn’t joined us,” said Sam, trying to speak calmly. The cook threw out his hand and looked round appealingly to the landscape to bear witness to this appalling attempt at brigandage. “You needn’t look like that,” said Sam. “Two pun ten’s wot I want of you, an’ I’ll take it afore you lose it.” Then the cook found words, and with Dick and Henry for audience made an impassioned speech in defence of vested interests and the sacred rights of property. Never in his life had he been so fluent or so inventive, and when he wound up a noble passage on the rights of the individual, in which he alluded to Sam as a fat sharper, he felt that his case was won. “Two pun ten,” said Sam, glowering at him. The cook, moistening his lips with his tongue, resumed his discourse. “Two pun ten,” said Sam again; “an’ I don’t know what you’re goin’ to do with your half, but I’m goin’ to give ten bob to Dick.” “Why don’t you give the man his money?” said Dick warmly. “Becos the syndikit ’ad all fell through,” said the cook. “The syndikit was only a syndikit when we was both looking for ’im together. If the syndikit—” “That’s enough about ’em,” said Dick impatiently; “give the man ’is money. Everybody knows you was goin’ shares. I’m ashamed of you, cook, I wouldn’t have thought it of you.” It ended in simple division, Dick taking what was over on Sam’s side and more than hinting that he was ready to do the cook a similar service. The cook turned a deaf ear, however, and declining in emphatic language to step ashore and take something, went and sulked in the galley. At dinner-time a telegram came from Annis, and the next morning brought a letter from her which the skipper read aloud to the proud father. He read it somewhat jerkily, omitting sentences and halves of sentences which he thought might not interest the old man, or perhaps, what was more likely, would interest him a great deal. After that they were all busy taking in the cargo, Captain Gething, in shirt and trousers, insisting upon lending a hand. The cargo was all in by five o’clock and the hatches down. Below in the cabin the two captains and the mate sat over a substantial tea. “Get away about three, I s’pose?” said the mate. The skipper nodded.