Craig grinned. "That's the correct kind of letter to write to excuse a dirty trick, Sam. It's got the true, rotten, swell twang about it."
The old mate sighed. "Maybe, Tom, maybe. But I don't believe she wrote it naturally—from her heart, like. I believe that her husband made her write it. He has a cold, hard face, and she's but little more than a child. But it's hard on this young fellow."
"It is hard, Sam. But there's lots o' women in the world, and I daresay he'll find another just as good before a month o' Sundays. Come, buck up, old man; what'll you have? Same again?"
"No more for me, Tom; I'm off aboard to see him. And I feel as if I was a blarsted sheriff telling a man that he was to be hung."
Craig slapped his friend on the back as they rose from their seats. "He'll get over it, Sam, never fear. When the heart is young, as the Bible says, it doesn't care a damn for anybody. And if he's getting good money he'll soon forget all about the girl; for he'll see plenty more just as good as her. Anyway that's my experience, Sam."
Bidding his friend good-bye, Watson, with a gloomy brow, walked to the Circular Quay and hired a water-man to take him down the harbour to the Mahina.
"There she is, sir, over there in Neutral Bay," said the boatman as he rounded Fort Macquarie.
Half an hour's pull brought them alongside, and the old man jumping on deck at once made his way into the cabin. Barry was seated at the table, getting his papers ready and waiting for Mrs. Tracey.
Springing to his feet he grasped Watson's hand and shook it warmly, but at once discerned from the expression on the old man's kindly face that there was something wrong. Before he could frame a question, however, Watson blurted out that he had bad news.
"Anything the matter with Miss Maynard or her father," he asked quietly.