"Oh, I'd like to go ever so much!" cried Corette, clapping her hands, "if they'd let me."
"Well, run and ask them," said he, rolling up his knitting and stuffing it under the cushion of his chair, "and I'll go and look at that boat right away."
So Corette ran home to her father and mother and told them all about the matter. They listened with great interest, and her father said:
"Well now, our little girl is not looking quite as well as usual. I have noticed that she is a little pale. A sea-trip might be the very thing for her."
"I think it would do her a great deal of good," said her mother, "and as to that Reformed Pirate, she'd be just as safe with him as if she was on dry land."
So it was agreed that Corette should go. Her father and mother were always remarkably kind.
The Reformed Pirate was perfectly delighted when he heard this, and he went hard to work to get his little vessel ready. To sail again on the ocean seemed to him the greatest of earthly joys, and as he was to do it for the benefit of a good little girl, it was all perfectly right and proper.
When they started off, the next day but one, all the people who lived near enough, came down to see them off. Just as they were about to start, the Reformed Pirate said:
"Hello! I wonder if I hadn't better run back to the house and get my sword! I only wear the empty scabbard now, but it might be safer, on a trip like this, to take the sword along."
So he ran back and got it, and then he pushed off amid the shouts of all the good people on the beach.