“Consequently I never make an ascension unaccompanied by a small bottle of Epsom salts, tightly corked.”
“And you threw away the salts and substituted the notes?—that was clever of you, Byfield.”
I lifted my voice. “And Mr. Dalmahoy, I presume, returns to his sorrowing folk?”
The extravagant cheerfully corrected me. “They will not sorrow: but I shall return to them. Of their grudged pension I have eighteenpence in my pocket. But I propose to travel with Sheepshanks, and raise the wind by showing his tricks. He shall toss the caber from Land’s End to Forthside, cheered by the plaudits of the intervening taverns and furthered by their bounty.”
“A progress which we must try to expedite, if only out of regard for Mrs. Sheepshanks.” I turned to Captain Colenso again. “Well, sir, will you accept me for your passenger?”
“I doubt that you are joking, sir.”
“And I swear to you that I am not.”
He hesitated; tottered to the companion, and called down, “Susannah! Susannah! A moment on deck, if you please. One of these gentlemen wishes to ship as passenger.”
A dark-browed woman of middle age thrust her head above the ladder and eyed me. Even so might a ruminating cow gaze over her hedge upon some posting wayfarer.