"Bound to," Mr. Crabapple replied; "never talk to them any other way, anyhow. 'Tis their business to understand. Ta, ta—deuce of a hurry."
"Where are you going, may I ask?"
"Read the Church Service—rather a bore—Sunday, you know."
The nondescript, then, was a chaplain.
The same evening he returned to the hotel, and on the following morning I saw him again descending the stairs, the same dressing-case in hand. He nodded salute, slung his luggage to the same urchin with the cry, "Hook it, you lubber!" and, turning to me, said, "Ta, ta, sheering off again."
"Where to now?"
"Mediterranean."
"There's no boat to-day."
"There is, though—there's mine;" and he was off.
The supposed chaplain was a stray-away from a novel by Marryat, commanded her Majesty's gunboat Catapult, and was at Cadiz on the duty of protecting British interests. At the moment his mission was to carry important despatches to Gibraltar.