“Mean by leaving me in another part of the house with that Wheeler girl while you and my intended went off together?” growled Flower ferociously.
“Well, I could only think you wanted it,” said Fraser, in a firm voice.
“What?” demanded the other, hardly able to believe his ears
“I thought you wanted Miss Wheeler for number four,” said the mate, calmly. “You know what a chap you are, cap’n.”
His companion stopped and regarded him in speechless amaze, then realising a vocabulary to which Miss Wheeler had acted as a safety-valve all the evening, he turned up a side street and stamped his way back to the Foam alone.
CHAPTER V.
THE same day that Flower and his friends visited the theatre, Captain Barber gave a small and select tea-party. The astonished Mrs. Banks had returned home with her daughter the day before to find the air full of rumours about Captain Barber and his new housekeeper. They had been watched for hours at a time from upper back windows of houses in the same row, and the professional opinion of the entire female element was that Mrs. Church could land her fish at any time she thought fit.
“Old fools are the worst of fools,” said Mrs. Banks, tersely, as she tied her bonnet strings; “the idea of Captain Barber thinking of marrying at his time of life.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” enquired her daughter.
“Why because he’s promised to leave his property to Fred and you, of course,” snapped the old lady; “if he marries that hussy it’s precious little you and Fred will get.”