"Trouble," roared the hermit of Topsail Island. "Trouble enough fer all hands and some left over fer the cat! Say, shipmate, yer hangs about this here L wharf a lot. Did yer see any piratical humans monkeyin' around my boat last night?"
"Why, what d'yer mean, cap'n," sniffled Hi Higgins. "I seen yer tie up here, and there yer boat is now. What d'yer mean by pira-pirawell, them parties yer mentioned? Yer mean some one took it?"
"Took it—yes, yer hornswoggled longshore lubber!" bellowed the captain. "I thought yer was hired as a sort uv watchman on this wharf. A find watchman yer are!"
"Well, yer see, cap'n," returned Hi Higgins, really alarmed at the captain's truculent tone, "I ain't here much after nine at night or before five in the morning."
"Well, was my boat here at five this mornin'?" demanded the captain.
"Sure it was," rejoined Hi Higgins, with a sniffle; "the fust boat I seen."
"Rob, my boy, I'm goin' crazy in my old age!" gasped the captain. "I'm as certain as I can be that the boat wasn't here when I came down to the wharf last midnight, but the pre-pon-der-ance of evidence is against me."
The captain shook his head gravely as he spoke. It was evident that he was sorely puzzled and half inclined to doubt the evidence of his own senses.
"Douse my toplights," he kept muttering, "if this don't beat a flying Dutchman on wheels and with whiskers!"
"I certainly don't believe that your eyes deceived you, captain," put in Rob, in the midst of the captain's rumbling outbursts. "It looks to me as if somebody really did borrow your boat last night, and that the decoy note supposed to be from me had something to do with it."