"But you are not standing there," rejoined Denis, as the servant made for the door. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
"To lay my hands on John Chinaman!" answered Jewson with an oath. "To catch him red-handed with your nugget on him, and to ram his own pig-tail down his yellow throat!"
The partners were left looking at each other with rather different expressions.
"He'll do it, too," said Doherty, jerking his head toward the door. "Trust the old steward!"
"I suppose one must trust him," remarked Denis in a dubious tone.
"Trust him? Of course you must! Why not, mister? Hasn't he looked after us well enough so far? Hasn't he made all the difference in the world to us, and haven't you admitted it every day? I don't care what he was at sea; let's take him as we find him ashore, and then we sha'n't get wrong. You don't seriously think the steward's had anything to do with this, do you?"
"Not seriously," replied Denis; nor, on reflection, had he the smallest ground for any such suspicion.
"Because," pursued Doherty, triumphantly, "if he wanted to put up a robbery, it's a funny thing he should wait until there was hardly anything to rob—isn't it?"
"Of course."
"And you've lost nothing except the nugget, have you?"