Murray regarded him in some surprize.
"True? My dear sir, I assured you 'twas Rip-Rap."
My father turned to Peter and me.
"After I told you—about this man, Robert—I hoped that I was wrong—that I had done him an injustice. But now he has convicted himself out of his own lips."
Murray gently deposited the snuffbox upon the table in front of him.
"Ah," he murmured. "I see! You were referring to my nickname, or, shall we say, nomme de guerre?"
My father laughed bitterly.
"Nomme de guerre! Name of a pirate! But let us have it, fair and openly, Andrew Murray. Are you Captain Rip-Rap?"
"I suppose most people would agree with your description," replied Murray; "although personally I prefer the word buccaneer. It is susceptible to so much wider use, and there is about it a suggestion of—— However, we are not interested here tonight in the more abstruse branches of etymology. I am the person popularly known on the high seas as Captain Rip-Rap, and I fancy I might have logical grounds for arguing that if any disgrace adheres to me by that admission, 'twas you, Ormerod, who drove me to the practise of what you call piracy."
"'Tis like you to take that tone," said my father. "I drove you from the practise of what amounted to piracy on the land. There is no difference in the way you earn your livelihood today, Murray. You were an outlaw, and you are an outlaw."