Walking down the beach, he sculled out to his sloop. His animals greeted him, Oliver Cromwell vociferously, the cats with a more reserved welcome.
"What d'you make of him?" asked Percy. "Odd stick, isn't he?"
"Yes," said Jim, meditatively, "but he seems like a gentleman. What I can't understand is why he's cruising along the coast alone in that old Noah's ark. It doesn't seem natural. Besides, it's dangerous business for a man of his age. Well, it's no concern of ours. Let's give him a pleasant evening."
Promptly at the end of the allotted hour the stranger came ashore again.
"Got the children all in bed for the night," said he. "Now I can make you a little visit with a clear conscience."
He spoke faster and more cheerfully than he had done before. The melancholy in his bearing had vanished. Jim thought he detected a slight odor of liquor about him, but he could not be sure. They all sat down together, and Throppy brought out his violin.
"What shall it be, boys?" he asked, after a preliminary tuning up.
"Give us 'The Wearing of the Green,'" suggested Lane.
Soon the wailing strains of the familiar Irish melody were breathing through the cabin. "Kathleen Mavourneen" followed, and the stranger sat as if fascinated. At "'Way Down Upon the Suwanee River" he dropped his head in his hands and his shoulders shook.
"Something livelier, Throppy," said Jim.