“Don’t be in a hurry, my lad,” said the elder man, after listening to his experiences. “I’ve been thinking over this little affair for some time now, an’ I think I’ve got a plan.”
“If it’s anything about baccy pouches——” began the young man ungratefully.
“It ain’t,” interrupted Mr. Boom, “it’s quite diff’rent. Now, you’d best get aboard your craft and do your duty. There’s more young men won girls’ ’arts while doing of their duty than—than—if they warn’t doing their duty. Do you understand me?”
It is inadvisable to quarrel with a prospective father-in-law, so that Tarrell said he did, and with a moody nod tumbled into his boat and put off to the smack. Mr. Boom having walked up and down a bit, and exchanged a few greetings, bent his steps in the direction of the “Jolly Sailor,” and, ordering two mugs of ale, set them down on a small bench opposite his old friend Raggett.
“I see young Tarrell go off grumpy-like,” said Raggett, drawing a mug towards him and gazing at the fast-receding boats.
“Aye, we’ll have to do what we talked about,” said Boom slowly. “It’s opposition what that gal wants. She simply sits and mopes for the want of somebody to contradict her.”
“Well, why don’t you do it?” said Raggett, “That ain’t much for a father to do surely.”
“I hev,” said the other slowly, “more than once. O’ course, when I insist upon a thing, it’s done; but a woman’s a delikit creetur, Raggett, and the last row we had she got that ill that she couldn’t get up to get my breakfast ready, no, nor my dinner either. It made us both ill, that did.”
“Are you going to tell Tarrell?” inquired Raggett.
“No,” said his friend. “Like as not he’d tell her just to curry favour with her. I’m going to tell him he’s not to come to the house no more. That’ll make her want him to come, if anything will. Now there’s no use wasting time. You begin to-day.”