“There’s the schooner,” said the captain, pointing, as they neared the opposite shore; “the Fair Emily, and the place she is lying at is called Todd’s Wharf.  Ask for Mr. Todd, or, better still, walk straight on to the wharf and have a look at her.  The old man’ll see you fast enough.”

He sprang nimbly ashore as the boat’s head touched the stairs, and after extending a hand to Mr. Chalk, which was coldly ignored, led the way up the steps to the quay.

“There’s the wharf just along there,” he said, pointing up the road.  “I’ll wait for you at the Jack Ashore here.  Don’t offer him too much to begin with.”

“I thought of offering a hundred pounds,” said Mr. Tredgold.  “If the ship’s sound we can’t be very much out over that sum.”

Captain Brisket stared at him.  “No; don’t do that,” he said, recovering, and speaking with great gravity.  “Offer him seventy.  Good luck.”

He watched them up the road and then, with a mysterious grin, turned into the Jack Ashore, and taking a seat in the bar waited patiently for their return.

Half an hour passed.  The captain had smoked one pipe and was half through another.  He glanced at the clock over the bar and fidgeted as an unpleasant idea that the bargain, despite Mr. Tredgold’s ideas as to the value of schooners, might have been completed without his assistance occurred to him.  He took a sip from his glass, and then his face softened as the faint sounds of a distant uproar broke upon his ear.

“What’s that?” said a customer.

The landlord, who was glancing at the paper, put it down and listened.  “Sounds like old Todd at it again,” he said, coming round to the front of the bar.

The noise came closer.  “It is old Todd,” said another customer, and hastily finishing his beer moved with the others to the door.  Captain Brisket, with a fine air of indifference, lounged after them, and peering over their shoulders obtained a good view of the approaching disturbance.

His three patrons, with a hopeless attempt to appear unconcerned, were coming down the road, while close behind a respectable-looking old gentleman with a long, white beard and a voice like a foghorn almost danced with excitement.  They quickened their pace as they neared the inn, and Mr. Chalk, throwing appearances to the winds, almost dived through the group at the door.  He was at once followed by Mr. Tredgold, but Mr. Stobell, black with wrath, paused in the doorway.

[Illustration:  “His three patrons, with a hopeless attempt to appear unconcerned, were coming down the road”]

“FETCH’EM out,” vociferated the old gentleman as the landlord barred the doorway with his arms.  “Fetch that red-whiskered one out and I’ll eat him.”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Todd?” inquired the landlord, with a glance at his friends.  “What’s he done?”

“Done?” repeated the excitable Mr. Todd.