"Good evenin', Sir Richard," he said solemnly. Then the huge joke he had been cogitating ever since Irene informed him at luncheon that Royson was now a man of title mastered him completely. "Sink me," he burst forth, "I've had some daisies of second mates under me in me time, but I've never bossed a bloomin' barrow-knight afore. My godfather! Won't Becky be pleased! An' wot'll Tagg say? Pore old Tagg! He'll 'ave a fit!" "Look here, captain--" began Dick, swinging his feet to the ground. But Stump's slow-moving wits, given full time to get under weigh, were working freely; punctuating each pause with a flourish of his pipe, he continued: "Lord love a duck, I can see Tagg blowin' in to a snug in the West Injia Dock Road, an' startin' ev'ry yarn with, 'W'en I sailed down the Red Sea with Sir Richard--' or, 'We was goin' through the Gut on a dirty night, an' Sir Richard sez to me--' Well, there, I on'y hope 'e survives the fust shock. W'en 'e gets 'is wind we'll 'ave a fair treat. Mind ye, I 'ad a sort of funny feelin' when you tole me in the train you was my second mate, an' you sat there a-wearin' knickers. It gev me a turn, that did. An' then, you took another twist at me by sayin' you'd never bin to sea. I knew things was goin' to happen after that. It must ha' bin, wot d'ye call it--second sight--for I knew then an' there I'd got a prize in the lottery--" "Oh, shut up!" shouted Royson, diving frantically for his boots. "That's no way for a barrow-knight to talk to 'is admirin' skipper," said Stump. "But I s'pose, now, it sounds queer to 'ave me a-callin' you Sir Richard, w'en, as like as not, I might be dammin' your eyes as second mate?" Royson tried to escape, in his hurry he did not notice a bulky letter which lay on the top of one of his leather trunks. Stump called him back. "You're missin' your mail, Sir Richard," he said, and Dick, perforce, returned. Oddly enough, the letter covered the initials "R. K." painted on the portmanteau. Turning a deaf ear to Stump's further pleasantries, he opened the envelope. A scrawl on a sheet of thin continental note-paper contained the brief statement that, "by inadvertence," von Kerber had "detained the enclosed letters and cablegrams." The enclosures, which were from Mr. Forbes, bore out the accuracy of Mrs. Haxton's revelations. He was, in very truth, the twenty-seventh baronet of his line, sole owner of Orme Castle and its dependencies, and befitted, by rank, descent, and estate, to take a social position of no mean order.