Miss Jelks maintained her temper with some difficulty; but the absolute necessity of discovering the identity of the person referred to by Mr. Walters, if she was to have any recreation at all during the next two years, helped her.
"He'll have an easy job of it," she said, at last, with a toss of her head.
"That's just wot I told 'im," said the boatswain. "He didn't want to take the job on at first, but I p'inted out that if you behaved yourself and kept your promise he'd 'ave nothing to do; and likewise, if you didn't, it was only right as 'ow I should know. Besides which I gave 'im a couple o' carved peach stones and a war-club that used to belong to a Sandwich Islander, and took me pretty near a week to make."
Miss Jelks looked up at him sideways. "Be a bit of all right if he comes making up to me himself," she said, with a giggle. "I wonder whether he'd tell you that?"
"He won't do that," said the boatswain, with a confident smile. "He's much too well-behaved, 'sides which he ain't old enough."
Miss Jelks tore her arm away. "You've never been and set that old-fashioned little shrimp Bassett on to watch me?" she said, shrilly.
"Never you mind who it is," growled the discomfited boatswain. "It's got nothing to do with you. All you've got to know is this: any time 'e sees you out—this party I'm talking of—he's going to log it. He calls it keeping a dairy, but it comes to the same thing."
"I know what I call it," said the offended maiden, "and if I catch that little horror spying on me he'll remember it."
"He can't spy on you if you ain't out," said the boatswain. "That's wot I told 'im; and when I said as you'd promised he saw as 'ow it would be all right. I'm going to try and bring him 'ome a shark's tooth."
"Goin' to make it?" inquired Rosa, with a sniff.