“There’s no hurry,” he said, putting his share of bundles on the table with some relief. “What’s your poison this time, cap’n?” CHAPTER XII In less rapid times, before the invention of the electric telegraph and other scientific luxuries, Captain Gething would have remained quietly on board the _Seamew_, and been delivered to his expectant family without any further trouble. As it was, the message in which Captain Wilson took such pride, reached Mrs. Gething just as Mr. Glover—who had been sitting in her parlor all the afternoon, listening as patiently as he could to her somewhat uninteresting conversation—was on the point of departure. The effect on him was hardly less marked than on his hostess, and he went on his way to the railway station in a condition in which rage and jealousy strove for the mastery. All the way to town he pondered over ways and means to wrest from his rival the prize which he had won, and by the time the train had reached Fenchurch Street he had hatched as pleasant a little plot as ever occurred to a man, most of whose existence had been spent amid the blameless surroundings of ladies’ hosiery. Half an hour later he was sitting in the dingy furnished apartments of a friend of his who lived in a small house off the Walworth Road. “I want you to do me a favor, Tillotson,” he said to the unkempt-looking tenant. “I shall be delighted,” said Mr. Tillotson, sticking his hands in his pockets, and warming himself comfortably at a fire-stove ornament trimmed with red paper roses—“if I can, you know.” “It is a great favor,” said Glover. Mr. Tillotson, looking very despondent, said, of course, that would please him more. “I wouldn’t ask anybody but you to do it,” said the wily Glover. “If it comes off all right I will get you that berth you asked me for at Leatham and Roberts’.” “It’s coming off, then,” said Mr. Tillotson, brightening visibly. “If you will wait a minute—if the girl is in I will ask her if she will go and get us something to drink.” “I had better begin at the beginning,” said Mr. Glover, as, all the ’ifs’ having been triumphantly surmounted, he helped himself from a small flat bottle of whiskey; “it won’t take long.” He lit his pipe, and, plunging into his story, finished it without interruption. “You are a deep one, Glover,” said his admiring friend when he had finished. “I thought you had been very smart lately—not but what you were always a dressy man,” he added thoughtfully. “I believe in keeping my own things to myself,” said Glover. “And this bargee has got the old un,” said Tillotson, using the terms Glover had employed in his narrative. “I don’t see what is to be done, Glover.” “I want to get him away,” said the other. “If I can’t find him, nobody else shall, and I want you to help me.” “Go down to Stourwich, tie him up in a sack, and drown him, I suppose,” said Tillotson, trying to live up to a reputation several lady friends had bestowed upon him of being sarcastic.