'Good evening, skipper!' Ping Wang added, equally cheerfully.
Skipper Drummond dropped his hat and gloves, and almost started out of his chair. Evidently he had never expected to see either Charlie or Ping Wang again.
'Have you brought us the clothes which we left on the Sparrow-hawk?' Charlie inquired.
'And the pay which you owe me?' Ping Wang added.
'I thought that you were both drowned,' the skipper gasped.
'And no doubt you are almost sorry that we were not,' Charlie remarked. 'However, we have told my father what a wretched old tub the Sparrow-hawk is. We have told him that she is rotten; that her boilers are worn out; that her gear is not up-to-date; that she has the smallest catches of any Grimsby trawler. We have told him also that you have been keeping down expenses by half-starving your men, and that you are the vilest little bully that ever held a captain's certificate.'
'And they also told me,' Mr. Page joined in, 'that you confessed to one of your men that you were about to sell the Sparrow-hawk for half as much again as she was worth. Let me assure you that you will do nothing of the kind. I would not give half the sum which you ask for her. From the first I suspected that you were a swindler, and it was to obtain proof of it that my son shipped with you as a cook. Have you anything that you wish to say in your defence, or will you go at once?'
Skipper Drummond picked up his hat and gloves, and without uttering a word walked out of the room. He was white with rage, but he dared not express his anger in words such as he would have used on the Sparrow-hawk, for Charlie accompanied him to the hall door, and stood in the porch watching him until he had passed into the main road.
'We have seen the last of him, I think,' said Charlie, when the captain was out of sight; 'and I hope that I never meet another man like him.'
On the following evening the Pages had a much more welcome visitor in Lieutenant Williams, who availed himself of Charlie's earnest invitation to come and see him and Ping Wang before they started for China. In private life he was just as cheery, amusing, and good-tempered as on board ship. He told many interesting stories of his work in coper-catching and arrests for illegal fishing. He quite envied Fred, Charlie, and Ping Wang their trip to China.