“Nothing, ma’am, nothing,” he replied, turning round to her—“only I’ve this moment thought of a way of ‘killing two birds with one stone.’ I promised these youngsters, you know, if they were good—”
“I know, I know what’s coming now,” cried Miss Nell, again interrupting him. Really she was a very rude little lady sometimes. “You’re going to tell us at last!”
“What, missy?” said the Captain chuckling, as she and Bob executed a triumphal dance round him, while Dick stood grinning in the background, his face, which had filled out considerably in the last week or two, making him look very different to the lantern-jawed lad they had encountered in the train, all one smile. “What, missy?”
“You’re going to take us out somewhere,” Bob and Nellie cried in concert. “You promised, you know you did!”
“But, that was if you were good,” he answered, enjoying their antics. “That was the proviso, young people.”
“We are good,” they shouted together. “Auntie says so.”
The Captain put his hands to his ears to shut out their voices.
“Are they good?” he asked Mrs Gilmour. “Eh, ma’am?”
“Well, yes, I think so,” said she, smiling. “Good enough as far as such children can be, I suppose! I suppose I must not tell tales out of school, sure, about what a little girl said the other day when somebody, whom I won’t name, went away?”
“What, what?” inquired the old sailor, looking from one to the other. “Tell me what she said!”