LITMIR.BIZ

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it over the edge of the table.

      “It must be after his bed-time,” said Bridget.

      “’Sh!” said Susan.

      John watched, wondering. So that was what you felt like after an all-night passage single-handed in a ship of your own. How soon would he have a ship himself, and sail all day and all night and bring her into port, moor her and tidy her and then, with nothing left to worry about, hold up no longer and let the tiredness he had fought for hours close happily over his head?

      Mother moved from the doorway to let Miss Powell come in with the supper.

      Miss Powell laughed quietly, and put the tray down without waking Jim. “He’ll be all right when he’s had a bit of food,” she said. “Many a time I’ve seen him and his uncle asleep the both of them when they’ve come in from sea. I might have known he was coming, with the supper I’ve got for you . . . pea soup and a mushroom omelette. . . It was what they always asked for if they’d found time to let me know they were coming. They would send me a telegram, ‘PEA SOUP AND OMELETTE PLEASE,’ and I would know they were on their way.”

      John, Bridget and Susan slipped silently into their places as Mother sat down and began to ladle out the soup into blue willow pattern soup plates.

      “Shall I wake him?” said Roger. “I bet he’s hungry.”

      “The soup’s very hot,” said Susan. “No need to wake him for a minute or two.”

      But Jim Brading stirred suddenly, and flung out one hand, knocking over a glass which Titty caught just as it was rolling off the table.

      ’SH! ’SH!

      “North half West for the Long Sand Head,” muttered Jim, as if he were repeating to himself something he had learnt by heart. That flung-out hand was feeling for the tiller. He lifted his head with a jerk and stared about him. “Oh, I say . . . I’m dreadfully sorry. . . Look here, I’m not fit to. . . How long have I been asleep?”

      “Only a minute or two,” said Titty.

      John and Susan looked at Mother, almost as if to say, “He really couldn’t help it.” After all, he was their guest really.

      But you could always count on Mother to understand. She was laughing.

      “That’s all right,” she was saying. “I know just how you feel. Why, when I was a girl in Australia I’ve often fallen asleep on horseback, riding home after a dance, and been waked by the horse stopping and snuffing at the stable door. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some hot soup.”

      And really, though they did not know it at the time, Jim’s falling asleep was the best thing that could have happened. You cannot think of someone as a stranger when you have seen him sprawling asleep across your supper table. There was a smile in Mother’s eyes when she looked at their new friend after that. Big though he was, with his schooldays behind him, she was thinking of him much as she thought of John. Those few minutes when, with his head among the plates, he had been thinking he was still steering the Goblin through the night, had somehow made him one of the family.

      Presently they were talking as if they had known him all their lives, and he had told them to call him Jim and not to bother about the “Mr Brading.” Nor was it only John, Susan, Titty and Roger who asked questions. Mother asked them too, and Jim, waking up with the help of the soup and Miss Powell’s beautiful omelette, found himself talking of his first long voyages with his uncle, and of how gradually his uncle had let him do more and more of the work of the ship, and of how at last he had given him the Goblin for his own, on condition that now and then, when his rheumatism let him, he might join her again and be crew for her new skipper.

      “Jolly good uncle,” said Roger.

      “He is,” said Jim. “You see I left Rugby last term and I had a bit of luck with a scholarship to Oxford, and he promised her to me if I did. Not much rheumatism about him either. That was only his joke. He’s coming cruising next week.”

      Not another word had been said about their spending a night in the Goblin. Perhaps, they were thinking, it had been just politeness when Jim Brading had said he didn’t see why they shouldn’t, so there was really nothing to be disappointed about. And then, suddenly, the offer was made again, and Mother was there to hear it, and somehow, now, after Jim’s falling asleep on the table, it sounded different, more real, more as if it were meant, more possible altogether.

      “What are you going to do till he comes?” asked Roger.

      “Hang about,” said Jim. “And look here, I meant what I said. Why shouldn’t you join for a few days? I can cram in four of you. . .”

      “Sleeping on board,” said Titty. “Oh, Mother. . .”

      “They’d love it, of course,” said Mother, “but I can’t let them go just now. Their father’s on his way home, and we’ve come here on purpose to meet him at Harwich, and I can’t meet him and have to explain that most of his family’s gone off to sea.”

      “I wouldn’t take them to sea,” said Jim. “There’s the Orwell and the Stour and Harwich harbour. If you’ll let me have them for three days there’s lots we could do without ever going outside the Beach End buoy.”

      “I say, Mother, couldn’t we?” said John.

      “He’s got an engine,” said Roger.

      “You go right down into a real cabin,” said Titty.

      “I’ve four proper bunks,” said Jim. “The only trouble is I’m a bit short of bedding. I’ve only got blankets for two. . . But I’m sure I could borrow some. . .”

      “Roger!”

      But Roger was out of the room already, and the higher notes of eager talk could be heard from the other end of the passage. Almost at once he was back.

      “Miss Powell says it’s quite all right,” he said. “We can take the blankets off our beds.”

      “Oh, Roger!” laughed Mother. “I never said you could ask her. I really can’t take the risk. We may get a telegram from Daddy any day, and you don’t want to miss being at Harwich to meet him.”

      “But you said you didn’t think he could be here before Saturday?” said Titty.

      “And what if Saturday comes and you are all floating about on the river?”

      Jim Brading looked round the table at the eager faces of his would-be crew. He had made that first suggestion almost in fun, but now it did seem rather a pity if they couldn’t come. He rather liked the idea of having for once a crew a little younger than himself.

      “If you say when you want them to be back, I’ll promise they shall be at Pin Mill in plenty of time,” he said. And then, “We could report by telephone every day, from Ipswich, or Felixstowe Dock, or Shotley, wherever we happened to be. . .”

      “Can’t I go too?” said Bridget.

      “You’re not old enough,” said Mother, “and there isn’t room for you anyway.”

      John half jumped up from his chair.

      “She’s going to say ‘Yes,’” he almost shouted.

      “Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” said Bridget. “I’ve been growing up as fast as I can.”

      “I’m not asked, either,” said Mother. “And, Bridget, somebody’s got to stay and take care of me.”

      “I could sleep in the cockpit all right,” said Jim doubtfully, “but even if I did there wouldn’t really be room for six.”

      “No. No. No,” said Mrs Walker. “I didn’t mean that. Bridget and I have a lot

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