The young man stopped at this point and looked steadily at the old gentleman with a peculiarly questioning expression.
“You recognise me, I see,” said the old man, with a very slight smile.
“Well—I may be mistaken, but you do bear some resemblance to—”
“Just so, I’m the man that you hauled so violently out of the cabin of the wreck last week, and shoved so unceremoniously into the life-buoy, and I have sent for you, first, to thank you for saving my life, because they tell me that, but for your swimming off with a rope, we should certainly have all been lost; and, secondly, to offer you aid in any course of life you may wish to adopt, for I have been informed that you are not at present engaged in any special employment.”
“You are very kind, sir, very kind,” returned Charlie, somewhat embarrassed. “I can scarcely claim, however, to have saved your life, though I thankfully admit having had the opportunity to lend a hand. The rocket-men, in reality, did the work, for without their splendid working of the apparatus my swimming off would have been useless.”
Mr Crossley frowned while the youth was speaking, and regarded him with some suspicion.
“You admit, I suppose,” he rejoined sternly, “that if you had not swum off, the rocket apparatus would have been equally useless.”
“By no means,” returned Charlie, with that benignant smile that always accompanied his opposition in argument. “I do not admit that, because, if I had not done it, assuredly some one else would. In fact a friend of mine was on the point of making the attempt when I pulled him back and prevented him.”
“And why did you prevent him?”
“Because he was not so well able to do it as I.”