"You are an out-and-out spooney now, Matt Randolph; and I did not think that of you," said Spickles, as the crew of the Lily began to gather on the wharf, where the conversation had taken place.
"Just as you please, Spickles," replied Matt, with a smile; and he seemed to feel that the interview had come to a desirable point, and that his former associate would drop him from the roll of his friends.
"But I want to look about this place a little before I leave it forever," added the visitor. "I suppose I can do so?"
"Certainly, upon application to the principal, Captain Gildrock. He will show you all over the establishment," replied Matt. "There he comes, and I will introduce you."
"All right. Chuckworth! Mackwith!" answered Spickles, calling to his two companions in the boat.
The three young men appeared to be about eighteen or twenty years old. They were dressed in yachting costume, and a person of experience in the ways of the world would at once have set them down as fast young men. They were of the reckless order, swaggering, defiant, boisterous. If a lady had seen them together, she would have taken the other side of the street.
Captain Gildrock was coming down the wharf, to look after the embarkation of the sailing-class. Matt Randolph presented Spickles to the principal, and left the chief of the party to introduce his companions.
"You are the boss of this concern, I take it, Captain Gilthead," said Spickles, suddenly putting on his usual style, and in a sort of patronizing tone, as if the principal had been a country schoolmaster, who ought to consider himself honored by being noticed by a young gentleman from the metropolis.
In fact, Captain Spickles, as his companions on board of the La Motte called him, was determined to "take him down" a little. The visitor, after what Matt had said to him about the discipline of the institution, regarded him with a sort of instinctive hatred. He did not like any one who disciplined young men. Principals, professors, schoolmasters, were monsters, ogres, tyrants, whose only mission in the world was to tease, torture, and torment young fellows like himself.
Captain Gildrock looked at him with a puzzled expression on his dignified face; though the usual smile when he was in repose, played about his mouth. He read the young man almost at the first glance; and if he had considered the popinjay worthy of his steel, he would have prepared for a skirmish of words with him.