"I don't see how you could keep still when Squire Gilfilian asked you the question," added Bobtail, in his simplicity.
"If I had done by you as you are doing by me when I ask you a question, I should have kept still, as you do."
"But I don't want to get any one into a scrape," pleaded the skipper.
"What do you mean by that? I only ask you to tell the truth, as I did for you this morning," said the captain, in a coaxing tone.
"Squire Gilfilian owned that letter, and he had a right to ask about it. If you say you own this boat, I shall feel that I am perfectly safe in answering your questions."
"Perfectly safe! Then of course there was a cargo in her," added the visitor.
"I don't say there was. Have you lost a cargo, Captain Chinks?"
The captain mused. To say that he had lost a cargo would be to acknowledge that he was a smuggler, and he could not trust the secret to a boy like Little Bobtail, who had the reputation of being an honest and truthful boy. If called upon to give evidence, the boy would tell the whole truth. He would rather lose both the cargo and the boat than be convicted of smuggling.
"If there was no cargo in her, you would say so, Bobtail; so I have no doubt there was a cargo in her," continued Captain Clunks, after a silence of a few moments. "I take it for granted there was some sort of goods in her."
"What makes you think so, sir?"