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The couple left eyed each other wonderingly.

“Did I say anything pertickler funny, George?” inquired the skipper, after some deliberation.

“Didn’t strike me so,” said the mate carelessly; “I expect she’s thought o’ something else to say about your family. She wouldn’t be so good- tempered as all that for nothing. I feel cur’ous to know what it is.”

“If you paid more attention to your own business,” said the skipper, his choler rising, “you’d get on better. A mate who was a good seaman wouldn’t ha’ let a cook go on like this–it’s not discipline.”

He went off in dudgeon, and a coolness sprang up between them, which lasted until the bustle of starting in the small hours of Wednesday morning.

Once under way the day passed uneventfully, the schooner crawling sluggishly down the coast of Wales, and, when the skipper turned in that night, it was with the pleasant conviction that Mrs. Blossom had shot her last bolt, and, like a sensible woman, was going to accept her defeat. From this pleasing idea he was aroused suddenly by the watch stamping heavily on the deck overhead.

“What’s up?” cried the skipper, darting up the companion-ladder, jostled by the mate.

“I dunno,” said Bill, who was at the wheel, shakily. “Mrs. Blossom come up on deck a little while ago, and since then there’s been three or four heavy splashes.”

“She can’t have gone overboard,” said the skipper, in tones to which he manfully strove to impart a semblance of anxiety. “No, here she is. Anything wrong, Mrs. Blossom?”

“Not so far as I’m concerned,” replied the lady, passing him and going below.

“You’ve been dreaming, Bill,” said the skipper sharply.

“I ain’t,” said Bill stoutly. “I tell you I heard splashes. It’s my belief she coaxed the cook up on deck, and then shoved him overboard. A woman could do anything with a man like that cook.”

“I’ll soon see,” said the mate, and walking forward he put his head down the fore-scuttle and yelled for the cook.

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered a voice sleepily, while the other men started up in their bunks. “Do you want me?”

“Bill thinks somebody has gone overboard,” said the mate. “Are you all here?”

In answer to this the mystified men turned out all standing, and came on deck yawning and rubbing their eyes, while the mate explained the situation. Before he had finished the cook suddenly darted off to the galley, and the next moment the forlorn cry of a bereaved soul broke on their startled ears.

“What is it?” cried the mate.

“Come here!” shouted the cook, “look at this!”

He struck a match and held it aloft in his shaking fingers, and the men, who were worked up to a great pitch of excitement and expected to see something ghastly, after staring hard for some time in vain, profanely requested him to be more explicit.

“She’s thrown all the saucepans and things overboard,” said the cook with desperate calmness. “This lid of a tea kettle is all that’s left for me to do the cooking in.”

* * * * *

The Gannet, manned by seven famine-stricken misogynists, reached London six days later, the skipper obstinately refusing to put in at an intermediate port to replenish his stock of hardware. The most he would consent to do was to try and borrow from a passing vessel, but the unseemly behaviour of the master of a brig, who lost two hours owing to their efforts to obtain a saucepan of him, utterly discouraged any further attempts in that direction, and they settled down to a diet of biscuits and water, and salt beef scorched on the stove.

Mrs. Blossom, unwilling perhaps to witness their sufferings, remained below, and when they reached London, only consented to land under the supervision of a guard of honour, composed of all the able-bodied men on the wharf.