"I don't believe the navy has any plans," I said, "so far as you are concerned. They just want to make you think that you are busy."
"Treason!" Bobby cried loudly. "Treason! I'm afraid it's my duty to lay charges against you, Adam."
"And I," I retorted, "will expel you from membership in the Clam Beds Protective Company—if you persist."
"There!" said Miss Radnor. "How will you like that, Mr. Leverett?"
"I'll have to give in," Bobby replied. "It's a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconstitutional, but Adam wouldn't mind a little thing like that. I am moved by the thought of Eve's grief, although you wouldn't think that a good sport like Eve would object to a traitor's taking off. I surrender, Adam. Be merciful."
Our noise had attracted Old Goodwin, and he joined us. And, thinking that Bobby might as well be left to the society of the telescope and Miss Radnor, we left him, we three, and betook ourselves to the shore. On the white schooner the man in the pea-jacket and old faded blue cap was still pacing back and forth by the rail, and Pukkie turned to his grandfather and asked him the question which I could not answer.
At that moment the man caught sight of Old Goodwin, and waved his arm, and Old Goodwin answered the wave.
"That is Captain Fergus, Pukkie. He's the captain. Some years ago he was captain of vessels that sailed the deep oceans."
My son was astonished. Captains who sail the deep oceans command his unbounded respect. I inferred from his reply that skippers of yachts, even of great white schooner yachts, do not.