LITMIR.BIZ

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      “With not a soul to speak to,” said Mr. Boom pointedly.

      The other kicked at a small crab which was passing, and returned it to its native element in sections.

      “I'll walk up there with you if you're going that way,” he said at length.

      “No, I'm just having a look round,” said Mr. Boom, “but there's nothing to hinder you going, Dick, if you've a mind to.”

      “There's no little thing you want, as I'm going there, I s'pose?” suggested Tarrell. “It's awkward when you go there and say, 'Good morning,' and the girl says, 'Good morning,' and then you don't say any more and she don't say any more. If there was anything you wanted that I could help her look for, it 'ud make talk easier.”

      “Well—go for my baccy pouch,” said Mr. Boom, after a minute's thought, “it'll take you a long time to find that.”

      “Why?” inquired the other.

      “'Cos I've got it here,” said the unscrupulous Mr. Boom, producing it, and placidly filling his pipe. “You might spend—ah—the best part of an hour looking for that.”

      He turned away with a nod, and Tarrell, after looking about him in a hesitating fashion to make sure that his movements were not attracting the attention his conscience told him they deserved, set off in the hang-dog fashion peculiar to nervous lovers up the road to the cottage. Kate Boom was sitting at the door as her father had described, and, in apparent unconsciousness of his approach, did not raise her eyes from her book.

      “Good morning,” said Tarrell, in a husky voice.

      Miss Boom returned the salutation, and, marking the place in her book with her forefinger, looked over the hedge on the other side of the road to the sea beyond.

      “Your father has left his pouch behind, and being as I was coming this way, asked me to call for it,” faltered the young man.

      Miss Boom turned her head, and, regarding him steadily, noted the rising colour and the shuffling feet.

      “Did he say where he had left it?” she inquired.

      “No,” said the other.

      “Well, my time's too valuable to waste looking for pouches,” said Kate, bending down to her book again, “but if you like to go in and look for it, you may!”

      She moved aside to let him pass, and sat listening with a slight smile as she heard him moving about the room.

      “I can't find it,” he said, after a pretended search.

      “Better try the kitchen now then,” said Miss Boom, without looking up, “and then the scullery. It might be in the woodshed or even down the garden. You haven't half looked.”

      She heard the kitchen door close behind him, and then, taking her book with her, went upstairs to her room. The conscientious Tarrell, having duly searched all the above-mentioned places, returned to the parlour and waited. He waited a quarter of an hour, and then going out by the front door stood irresolute.

      “I can't find it,” he said at length, addressing himself to the bedroom window.

      “No. I was coming down to tell you,” said Miss Boom, glancing sedately at him from over the geraniums. “I remember seeing father take it out with him this morning.”

      Tarrell affected a clumsy surprise. “It doesn't matter,” he said. “How nice your geraniums are.”

      “Yes, they're all right,” said Miss Boom briefly.

      “I can't think how you keep 'em so nice,” said Tarrell.

      “Well, don't try,” said Miss Boom kindly. “You'd better go back and tell father about the pouch. Perhaps he's waiting for a smoke all this time.”

      “There's no hurry,” said the young man; “perhaps he's found it.”

      “Well, I can't stop to talk,” said the girl; “I'm busy reading.”

      With these heartless words, she withdrew into the room, and the discomfited swain, only too conscious of the sorry figure he cut, went slowly back to the harbour, to be met by Mr. Boom with a wink of aggravating and portentous dimensions.

      “You've took a long time,” he said slyly, “There's nothing like a little scheming in these things.”

      “It didn't lead to much,” said the discomfited Tarrell.

      “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.”

      “I don't know what to say,” murmured Rag-gett, nodding to him as he raised the beer to his lips.

      “Just go now and call in—you might take her a nosegay.”

      “I won't do nothing so darned silly,” said Raggett shortly.

      “We'll, go without 'em,” said Boom impatiently; “just go and get yourselves talked about, that's all—have everybody making game of both of you. Talking about a good-looking young girl being sweethearted by an old chap with one foot in the grave and a face like a dried herring. That's what I want.”

      Mr. Raggett, who was just about to drink, put his mug down again and regarded his friend fixedly.

      “Might I ask who you're alloodin' too?” he inquired somewhat shortly.

      Mr. Boom, brought up in mid-career, shuffled a little and laughed uneasily. “Them ain't my words, old chap,” he said; “it was the way she was speaking of you the other day.”

      “Well, I won't have nothin' to do with it,” said Raggett rising.

      “Well, nobody needn't know anything about it,” said Boom, pulling him down to his seat again. “She won't tell, I'm sure—she wouldn't like the disgrace of it.”

      “Look here,” said Raggett getting up again.

      “I mean from her point of view,” said Mr. Boom querulously;

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