Dixon drew in his breath sharply, first flushing, then all the color leaving his face. But the young man was quick to feel that he was making matters worse.
“Don’t mind me, Halstead,” he begged, quickly. “You startled me, and I hardly know what I’m saying. I—I—I—am South for my nerves, you know.”
“No; I didn’t know,” replied Skipper Tom, quietly. He felt a good deal of wonder at the statement, for Oliver Dixon looked like anything but a nervous wreck.
“You—you won’t mention this?” begged the young man, bending to pick up the vial, which he thrust into a vest pocket.
“Why, I don’t see anything either to tell or to conceal,” remarked Captain Halstead.
“I—I don’t want Miss Silsbee—or the Tremaines, either, for that matter, to know that I’m so—so nervous,” almost stammered Oliver Dixon.
“I’m not in the habit of carrying tales of any kind,” retorted the youthful skipper, rather stiffly.
He passed on to the staterooms at the after end of the cabin. Dixon followed him with a scowl full of suspicion and hate. Could Halstead have seen that look he would have been intensely astonished.
By the time he had attended to the stateroom portholes and had come out again, Halstead found Ham in the cabin, spreading the cloth for the evening meal. So as not to be in the steward’s way, Tom went up by the after companionway. As Tom stepped to the deck the clatter of dishes came up after him.
“The steward isn’t setting the dinner table so soon, is he?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, in her usual languid voice.