The waiter—polite to a fault—brings him paper, pen, and ink, and he writes several letters. One is to the honest fisherman, Teenie’s father. You may easily guess what that was about. It finished up, however, with this sentence:—
“Be not uneasy. She is so happy night and day, and I will guard and protect her like the apple of my eye.”
He did not say which eye, but I dare say he did not refer to the demon eye, as some of the sailors on board were ill-mannered enough to call it.
Presently the affable little landlord returned, and with him a young lady of some twenty summers—a dark-eyed rather pretty brunette, with a tropically bronzed skin, and eye-lashes that swept her cheeks, and very neatly dressed.
“Not English?”
“No, Capitan, Español.”
“But you can talk good English?”
“Yes, I can both write and speak English, Señor.”
“Right! Has the good landlord told you everything?”
“Everything to me he has told; and I am willing to sail the seas. Been already to Rio and Buenos Ayres. Oh, good, all good! I shall teach and take care of your little child, and the wages will suit.”