"Wait a bit, Fred. I'm taken all aback like. Is this part of the dream?"
"No, sir, this is all reality."
"But you weren't at sea before to get shipwrecked?"
Fred was saucily laughing now.
"Oh, yes, sir, we were! Our craft was the good ship Water Baby, the owner, Frank Fielding, of Benshee House. I was captain, and the crew all told was my sister Toddie—who isn't my sister at all, however—and her little dog Tip."
"I begin to see through the milestone now," said Captain Cawdor. "Go on with your cruise of the Water Baby then."
"There's nothing much to tell, you know. We had put to sea well-provisioned, and all that, and were enjoying ourselves finely. We had just finished dinner, when a white squall came roaring over the mountains, and blew us far away to the west. I was the pirate of the wild west seas, anyhow."
"I say, mate, did you know we had a real live pirate on board?"
"No, sir, it's terrible!"
"Well, sir," continued Fred, "we were shipwrecked on a desert island, and played at Crusoes, till Toddie grew sick, and lay down to die. Then it was very awful; but somehow Daddy Pop found us, and we were saved."