"Be off with you, then. I wish not to be disturbed."
"See can you find us late news of the pirates, Darby," I added as he slipped by.
He answered me with a merry scowl, but my father spun on his heel.
"What mean you by that, Robert?" says he.
I was nonplussed.
"Why, naught, sir. Darby is daft on pirates. He——"
Peter Corlaer shut the room-door upon the Irish boy and came toward us, moving with the swift stealth that was one of his most astonishing characteristics.
"Ja, he does not know," he said.
"What?" challenged my father.
"What you andt I know," returned the Dutchman calmly.