“Cap’n Warden, miss. But there! It’s dad’s yarn. You must ‘ave it from ‘im, from chapter one to finis.”
Though on the brink of tears—for she was overwrought—the girl could not help smiling.
“You are becoming quite literary,” she said.
“That’s the way I read a book if it’s any good, miss,—a book like ‘The Scalp Hunters’ or ‘Nick of the Woods’—every word, from beginnin’ to end. There ‘e is—that’s father—on the seat under the tree. I s’pose ‘e’s tired. It was a long tramp through the dust from the quay.”
Peter received her joyously.
“Sink me!” he cried, “but it’s a cure for sore eyes ter see you at last, miss. It is you, isn’t it?”
He was not content until he had looked her full in the face in the moonlight.
“You’re a bit thinner,” he commented. “People can say wot they like, but Ole England’s hard to beat for fresh air an’ sound vittals. Chris an’ me would ha’ starved on that tub of a mail–boat if we ‘adn’t palled in with the Scotch engineer, who med ‘em cook some plain food. Hello! You’re bin cryin’? Now, wot the——”
“Peter,” said Evelyn brokenly, “for Heaven’s sake, if you have news of Captain Warden tell me what it is.”