"That ain't all," he cried gayly; then leveled a threatening finger,
like a pistol, at her neighbor. "Who poked fun at me, first and last?
Who always came out aboard to tell me what an old ass I was? Fixed
ideas, eh? No go?--Look you here. What did I come so many hundred miles
for? To say what I always said: half-shares." The light-blue eyes, keen
with sea-cunning and the lonely sight of many far horizons, suffered an
indescribable change. "My boy, the half's yours. There's two rich men
here to-night. I've come to take you Home."
It was Heywood's turn to be struck dumb. He grew very pale.
"Oh, I say," he stammered at last, "it's not fair--"
"Don't spoil the happiest evening--" whispered the girl beside him.
He eyed her ruefully, groaned, then springing up, went swiftly to the
head of the table and wrung the captain's brown paw, without a word
to say.
"Can do, can do," said Captain Kneebone, curtly. "I was afraid ye might
not want to come."
Then followed a whirlwind; and Teppich rose with his moustache
bristling, and the ready Nesbit jerked him down again in the opening
sentence; and everybody laughed at Heywood, who sat there so white,
with such large eyes; and the dinner going by on the wings of night, the
melancholy "boy" circled the table, all too soon, with a new silver
casket full of noble cigars from Paiacombo, Manila, and Dindigul.
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