Dialstone Lane Part 26

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Chalk, drawing herself up; "but you forget that I am coming."

"Two jolly bachelors, then," said the undaunted Stobell.

"No," said Mrs. Chalk, shaking her head, "I am not going alone; if Mrs.

Stobell can't come I would sooner stay at home."

Mr. Stobell's face cleared; his mouth relaxed and his dull eyes got almost kindly. With the idea of calling the attention of Mr. Chalk to the pleasing results of a little firmness he placed his foot upon that gentleman's toe and bore heavily.

"Best place for you," he said to Mrs. Chalk. "There's no place like home for ladies. You can have each other to tea every day if you like. In fact, there's no reason--" he paused and looked at his wife, half doubtful that he was conceding too much-"there's no reason why you shouldn't sleep at each other's sometimes."

He helped himself to some cake and, rendered polite by good-nature, offered some to Mrs. Chalk.

"Mind, I shall not go unless Mrs. Stobell goes," said the latter, waving the plate away impatiently; "that I am determined upon."

Mr. Chalk, feeling that appearances required it, ventured on a mild-a very mild-remonstrance.

"And he," continued Mrs. Chalk, sternly, indicating her husband with a nod, "doesn't go without me-not a single step, not an inch of the way."

Mr. Chalk collapsed and sat staring at her in dismay. Mr. Stobell, placing both hands on the table, pushed his chair back and eyed her disagreeably.

"It seems to me--" he began.

"I know," said Mrs. Chalk, speaking with some rapidity-"I know just how it seems to you. But that's how it is. If you want my husband to go you have got to have me too, and if you have me you have got to have your wife, and if--"

"What, is there any more of you coming?" demanded Mr. Stobell, with great bitterness.

Mrs. Chalk ignored the question. "My husband wouldn't be happy without me," she said, primly. "Would you, Thomas?"

"No," said Mr. Chalk, with a gulp.

"We-we're going a long way," said Mr. Stobell, after a long pause.

"Longer the better," retorted Mrs. Chalk.

"We're going among savages," continued Mr. Stobell, casting about for arguments; "cannibal savages."

"They won't eat her," said Mrs. Chalk, with a pa.s.sing glance at the scanty proportions of her friend, "not while you're about."

"I don't like to take my wife into danger," said Mr. Stobell, with surly bashfulness; "I'm-I'm too fond of her for that. And she don't want to come. Do you, Alice?"

"No," said Mrs. Stobell, dutifully, "but I want to share your dangers, Robert."

"Say 'yes' or 'no' without any tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs," commanded her husband, as he intercepted a look pa.s.sing between her and Mrs. Chalk. "Do-you-want-to- come?"

Mrs. Stobell trembled. "I don't want to prevent Mr. Chalk from going,"

she murmured.

"Never mind about him," said Mr. Stobell.

"Do-you-want-to-come.

"Yes," said Mrs. Stobell.

Her husband, hardly able to believe his ears, gazed at her in bewilderment. "Very well, then," he said, in a voice that made the tea-cups rattle. "COME!"

He sat with bent brows gazing at the table as Mrs. Chalk, her face wreathed in triumphant smiles, began to discuss yachting costumes and other necessities of ocean travel with the quivering Mrs. Stobell.

Unable to endure it any longer he rose and, in a voice by no means alluring, invited Mr. Chalk into the garden to smoke a pipe; Mr. Chalk, helping himself to two pieces of cake as evidence, said that he had not yet finished his tea. Owing partly to lack of appet.i.te and partly to the face which Mr. Stobell pressed to the window every other minute to entice him out, he made but slow progress.

The matter was discussed next day as they journeyed down to Biddlecombe with Mr. Tredgold to complete the purchase of the schooner, the views of the latter gentleman coinciding so exactly with those of Mr. Stobell that Mr. Chalk was compelled to listen to the same lecture twice.

Under this infliction his spirits began to droop, nor did they revive until, from the ferry-boat, his eyes fell upon the masts of the Fair Emily, and the trim figure of Captain Brisket standing at the foot of the steps awaiting their arrival.

"We've had a stroke of good luck, gentlemen," said Brisket, in a husky whisper, as they followed him up the steps. "See that man?"

He pointed to a thin, dismal-looking man, standing a yard or two away, who was trying to appear unconscious of their scrutiny.

"Peter Duckett," said Brisket, in the same satisfied whisper.

Mr. Stobell, ever willing for a free show, stared at the dismal man and groped in the recesses of his memory. The name seemed familiar.

"The man who ate three dozen hard-boiled eggs in four minutes?" he asked, with a little excitement natural in the circ.u.mstances.

Captain Brisket stared at him. "No; Peter Duckett, the finest mate that ever sailed," he said, with a flourish. "We're lucky to have the chance of getting him, I can tell you. To see him handle sailormen is a revelation; to see him handle a s.h.i.+p--"

He broke off and shook his head with the air of a man who despaired of doing justice to his subject. "These are the gentlemen, Peter," he said, introducing them with a wave of his hand.

Mr. Duckett raised his cap, and tugging at a small patch of reddish-brown hair strangely resembling a door-mat in texture, which grew at the base of his chin, cleared his throat and said it was a fine morning.

"Not much of a talker is Peter," said the genial Brisket. "He's a doer; that's what he is-a doer. Now, if you're willing-and I hope you are- he'll come aboard with us and talk the matter over."

This proposition being a.s.sented to after a little delay on the part of Mr. Stobell, who appeared to think Mr. Duckett's lack of connection with the hard-boiled eggs somewhat suspicious, they proceeded to Todd's Wharf and made a thorough inspection of the schooner. Mr. Chalk's eyes grew bright and his step elastic. He roamed from forecastle to cabin and from cabin to galley, and, his practice with the crow's-nest in Dialstone Lane standing him in good stead, wound up by ascending to the masthead and waving to his astonished friends below.

Mr. Todd came on board as he regained the deck, and, stroking his white beard, regarded him with an air of benevolent interest.

"There's no ill-feeling," he said, as Mr. Chalk eyed his outstretched hand somewhat dubiously. "You're a hard nut, that's what you are, and I pity anybody that has the cracking of you. A man that could come and offer me seventy pounds for a craft like this-seventy pounds, mind you,"

he added, with a rising colour, as he turned to the others "seventy pounds, and a face like a baby. Why, when I think of it, DAMME IF I

DON'T--"

Captain Brisket laid his hand on his arm and with soothing words led him below. His voice was heard booming in the cabin until at length it ended in a roar of laughter, and Captain Brisket, appearing at the companion, beckoned them below, with a whispered injunction to Mr. Chalk to keep as much in the background as possible.

The business was soon concluded, and Mr. Chalk's eye brightened again as he looked on his new property. Captain Brisket, in high good-humour, began to talk of accommodation, and, among other things, suggested a scheme of cutting through the bulkhead at the foot of the companion- ladder and building a commodious cabin with three berths in the hold.

"There are two ladies coming," said Mr. Chalk.

Captain Brisket rubbed his chin. "I'd forgotten that," he said, slowly.

"Two, did you say?"

"It doesn't matter," said Mr. Stobell, fixing him with his left eye and slowly veiling the right. "You go on with them alterations. One of the ladies can have your state-room and the other the mate's bunk."