"Are we treating our good friend quite fairly?" she asked.
Miss Belcher glanced at her and broke into a ringing laugh.
"You dear creature! No, to be sure, we are not; but from a child I always turned mischievous under correction. Captain Branscome, I beg your pardon."
"It is granted, ma'am."
"And—for I take you to be on the point of resigning, here and now—"
"Ma'am, you have guessed correctly."
"I am going to beg you to do nothing of the sort. No, I am not going to ask it only as a favour, but to appeal to your reason. You think it extremely rash of me to have entertained this man and talked with him so frankly? Well, but consider. To begin with, if I had not told him that we were after the treasure, he would probably have guessed it; nay, I make bold to say that he guessed it already, for—I forgot to mention it—he knows Harry Brooks."
"Knows me, ma'am?" I cried out, as all the company turned and stared at me.
"He says so, and that he recognized you as you were sculling up the creek."
"Knows me?" I echoed. "But who on earth can he be, then? Not—not the man Aaron Glass, surely?"