"I haven't settled that yet," said Meldon. "If there's any affair of yours, either practical, or an intellectual difficulty, which you want to have carefully thought out, now is your time. I'll devote myself to it with pleasure."
"Thanks," said the Major, "but there isn't."
"Are you quite sure? A chance like this doesn't occur every day."
"Quite sure; thanks."
"In that case I shall first of all meditate on Simpkins, Miss King, and the judge. Say an hour and a half for them. Then I shall consider the subject of my little daughter's education. Now that the various professions are opening their doors to women, it's most important to have a reasoned out scheme of education for a girl, and you can't get at it too soon. These two subjects, I think, will make a tolerably complete programme for the morning. If you ring a bell outside the door at one o'clock, I shall row in to luncheon. I shall be pretty hungry by that time, I expect, in spite of the biscuits."
Meldon carried out his plan successfully for the first part of the morning. He arranged the biscuits, his tobacco pouch, and a box of matches in convenient places; laid down a life-buoy as a pillow, and stretched himself at full length on the deck. After a time he shut his eyes, so that no insistent vision of the Spindrift's rigging should interrupt the working of his thought. At half-past eleven he was hailed from the shore. He raised himself slightly, and, leaning on his elbow, looked over the gunwale of the yacht. Major Kent stood on the beach.
"Anything wrong?" shouted Meldon.
"No. Nothing, except that Doyle is up at the house wanting to see you, and he seems to be in an uncommonly bad temper."
"I'm not going to drag myself all the way up to the house to gratify some whim of Doyle's. If he thinks he has a grievance, let him come down to the shore and I'll pacify him."
"Very well," said the Major. "I'll bring him. You row ashore and be ready when he comes."