“Then what are you putting in its place?” said Nancy.
“You'll see, you'll see,” said Pete.
At seven that night Pete was smoking over the gate when Kelly the Thief came up with a brown paper parcel. “Parcel for you, Mr. Quilliam,” said the postman, with the air of a man who knew something he should not know.
Pete blinked and looked bewildered. “You don't say!” he said.
“Well, if that's your name,” began the postman, holding the address for Pete to read.
Pete gave it a searching look. “Cap'n Peatr Quilliam, that's it sartenly, Lm Cottig—yes, it must be right,” he said, taking the parcel gingerly. Then with a prolonged “O——o!” shutting his eyes and nodding his head, “I know—a bit of a present from the mother to the lil one. Wonderful thoughtful a woman is about a baby when she's a mother, Mr. Kelly.”
The postman giggled, threw his finger seaward over one shoulder, and said, “Why aren't you writing back to her, then?”
“What's that?” said Pete sharply, making the parcel creak.
“Why aren't you writing to tell her how the lil one is, I'm saying?”
Pete looked at the postman as if the idea had dropped from heaven. “I must have a head as thick as a mooring-post, Mr. Kelly. Do you know, I never once thought of it. I'm like Goliath when he got little David's stone at his forehead—such a thing never entered my head before.”