"Is it going wrong?"
He laughed again.
"I don't know," he said, and began to chuckle at himself. "That's the trouble. I can't get the hang of it. There's a screw loose somewhere. I'm like a man steering a ship who knows nothing about navigation."
"It's all right if you do your best," said the girl, with the little preacher touch she inherited from her grand-dad. That note always caused an imp of mischief to bob up in the young man's heart.
"Hope so, de we," he said.
She looked at him sharply. She might censure her father, but she allowed that liberty to no one else.
"What!" she said.
Jim Silver took to instant flight.
"None-nothing," he stammered. "Only I'm afraid the pup-passengers won't think it's all right when they find themselves going to the bottom. They'll say, 'What business had you at the wheel if you can't steer?' And they'll be right, too."