"By his gentlemanly behavior, and because he knows a deal more about boat-sailing and the shores than I know," she retorted demurely.
"Leave it to me!" exclaimed Malcolm Standish. "I am going to learn navigation and fishology at once."
"But—don't you think you may be too late?" she asked him, running up the steps. "Good-night, Mr. Standish!"
Upon going indoors she did not find Cap'n Amazon. The lamp was burning in the living-room, but he was not there and the store was dark. Louise mounted the stairs, rather glad of his absence; but when she came to the top of the flight she saw the lamplight streaming through the open door of her uncle's bedroom. Diddimus, with waving tail, was just advancing into the "cabin," as Cap'n Amazon called the chamber he occupied.
Knowing that he particularly objected to having any of his possessions disturbed, and fearing that Diddimus might do some mischief there, Louise followed the tortoise-shell, calling to him:
"Come out of there! Come out instantly, Diddimus! What do you mean by
venturing in where we are all forbidden to enter? Don't you know,
Diddimus, that only fools dare venture where angels fear to tread?
Scat!"
Something on the washstand caught Louise's glance. In the bottom of the washbowl was the stain of a dark brown liquid. Beside it stood a bottle the label of which she could read from the doorway.
She caught her breath, standing for half a minute as though entranced. Diddimus, hearing a distant footstep, and evidently suspecting it, whisked past Louise out of the room.
There were other articles on the washstand that claimed the girl's notice; but it was to the bottle labeled "Walnut Stain" that her gaze returned. She crept away to her own room, lit her lamp, and did not even see Cap'n Amazon Silt again that night.