It was nearer eleven than ten when the steamer's whistle shrieked for the last time, and the crew began to haul the warps on board. I could see that Elsie and Fanny were beginning to think that their father would arrive too late, when I saw him coming along the wharf with Harmer just behind him. Up to this time I really believed Mr. Fleming, with the curious innocence that fathers often show, even those who from their antecedents and character might be expected to know better, had never thought of me as being his daughter's lover; but when he had joined his daughters on the hurricane deck, and caught sight of Harmer and myself standing on the main, I saw in a moment that he knew almost as much as we could tell him, and that for a few seconds he was doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry. I saw him look at me sternly for a few seconds, then he shook his head with a very mixed smile on his weather-beaten face, and, sitting down on the nearest beach, he burst into laughter. I went up the poop ladder and caught Fanny's words:
"Why, father, what is the matter with you? Don't laugh so, all the people will think you crazy?"
"So I am, my dear, clean crazy," he answered; "because I fancied I saw Tom Ticehurst and young Harmer down on deck there, and of course it is impossible, I know that—quite impossible. It was an hallucination. For what could they want here, I should like to know? You don't know, of course? Well, well, I am surprised!"
Just then I came up and showed myself, looking quite easy, though I confess to feeling more like a fool than I remember doing since I was a boy.
"Oh, then you are here, Ticehurst?" said the old man. "It wasn't a vision, after all. I was just telling Fanny here that I thought I was going off my head."
I laughed.
"Why, Mr. Fleming," I said, "is it impossible that I, too, should go to Victoria, on my way to Alaska?"
Fleming looked at me curiously, and almost winked. "Ah! Alaska, to be sure," said he. "You did speak of Alaska. It must be a nice place. You will be quite close to us. Come over and give us a call."
"Thank you for the invitation," I replied, laughing. "I will come to tea, and bring my young friend with me."
For Harmer now walked up, shook hands with the old man in the most ordinary way, and sat down between him and Fanny with a coolness I could not have imitated for my life. It is a strange thing to think of the amount of impudence boys have from seventeen to twenty-three or so; they will do things a man of thirty would almost faint to attempt, and succeed because they don't know the risk they run. Harmer was soon engaged in talk with Fanny, and I tried in vain to imitate him. I found Elsie as cold as ice; I could make no impression on her and was almost in despair at the very outset. If Fanny had told me the truth in the morning, then Elsie held a great command over herself. I soon gave up the attack and retreated to my berth, where I smoked savagely and was miserable. You can see I did not understand much about women then.