Someone else was whistling in the vicinity of his cabin, but it was not from the valet’s cabin that the cheery sounds proceeded.  They found him in the bathroom with an oily rag, rubbing up the taps.

He desisted immediately at their entrance and stood smartly at attention.  His eye was badly swollen and discoloured, he looked wretchedly ill, but he managed to smile at Saltash, who took him by the shoulder and made him face the light.

“What are you doing in here, you—­scaramouch?  Didn’t I tell you to lie still?  Here he is, Larpent!  What do you think of him?  A poor sort of specimen, eh?”

“What’s his name?” said Larpent.

“Toby Barnes, sir,” supplied the boy promptly.

“And there’s nothing under the sun he can’t do except drive cars,” put in Saltash, “and obey orders.”

Toby winced a little.  “I’m sorry, sir.  Only wanted to be useful, sir.  I’ll go back to bed if you say so.”

“What do you say, Captain?” said Saltash.

Larpent bent and looked closely at the injured eye.  “The sooner the better,” he said after a brief examination.  “Stay in bed for a week, and then I’ll look at you again!”

“Oh, not a week!” exclaimed Toby, aghast, and then clapped a hand to his mouth and was silent.

But his look implored Saltash who laughed and pinched the shoulder under his hand.  “All right.  We’ll see how you get on.  If we meet any weather you’ll probably be only too thankful to stay there.”

Toby smiled somewhat woefully, and said nothing.

Larpent stood up.  “I’ll fetch some stuff to dress it with.  Better have it bandaged.  Pretty painful, isn’t it?”

“No, sir,” lied Toby valiantly.  “Don’t feel it at all.”

But he shrank with a quick gasp of pain when Larpent unexpectedly touched the injury.

“Don’t hurt the child!” said Saltash sharply.

Larpent smiled his faint, sardonic smile, and turned away.

Toby laid his cheek with a winning, boyish gesture against the hand that held him.  “Don’t make me go to bed, sir!” he pleaded.  “I’ll be miserable in bed.”

Saltash looked down at him with eyebrows comically working.  “It is rather a hole—­that cabin of yours,” he conceded.  “You can lie on the couch in my stateroom if you like.  Don’t get up to mischief, that’s all!  I’m responsible for you, remember.”

Toby thanked him humbly, swearing obedience and good behaviour.  The couch in Saltash’s cabin was immediately under a porthole, and the fresh sea-air blew straight in.  He stretched his meagre person upon it with a sigh of contentment, and Saltash smiled down upon him.  “That’s right.  You’ll do there.  Let’s see!  What did you say your name was?”

“Toby, sir.”

“Toby Barnes or Toby Wright?” said Saltash.

The boy started, turned very red, then very white, opened his mouth to speak, shut it tightly, and said nothing.