their part, had never been able to go down to see her until now, something or other having always happened to prevent their proceeding to the sea.

“Well, better late than never,” said their fellow-traveller, whom Bob and Nellie began to look upon now quite as an old acquaintance—“I’ve no doubt you’ll enjoy yourselves. But, my dears, you haven’t mentioned your aunt’s name—her surname, I mean. Perhaps I might know her, for I’m an old resident of Portsmouth, or rather Southsea, which is just outside the lines and where all the best people live now.”

“Mrs Gilmour, sir,” replied Nellie. “That’s aunt Polly’s name.”

“What, Polly Gilmour, the widow of my old shipmate Ted Gilmour, who commanded the Bucephalus on the West Coast for two commissions and died of fever in the Bight of Benin? Bless my soul, who’d have thought it!”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Gilmour was in the Navy,” put in Bob as if to corroborate the surmise of the old gentleman. “He was Captain Gilmour, sir.”

His questioner, though, appeared for the moment lost in thought, his mind evidently occupied with a flood of old memories connected with his lost friend and their life afloat together.

“Dear, dear, who’d have thought it!” he repeated, as if speaking to himself. Then, presently, recovering his composure with an effort, aided by another pinch of snuff, he said aloud—“And so, you two children are poor Ted Gilmour’s niece and nephew, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Bob and Nellie in one breath, answering the question. “You just ask auntie and see what she says, sir.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said the old gentleman, hastily pulling Nellie towards him and giving her a kiss, much to her astonishment, the action was so sudden; while he next proceeded to shake Bob by the hand until his arm ached. “I am very glad, very glad indeed to meet you; and, if it be any satisfaction to know, I may tell you that I go round to your aunt Polly’s every evening to have a game of cribbage, summer and winter alike, except those three weeks when she goes to London to stop with your father, whose name, of course, I recollect now, although I did not think of that when you told it me awhile ago—”

“Then, you’re Captain Dresser?” interrupted Bob at this point, anxious to show that he had heard the old gentleman’s name before and recognised it. “I’m sure you’re Captain Dresser, sir.”

“Yes, I’m Captain Dresser,” replied that individual, smiling all over his face, his queer little beady black eyes twinkling more than ever with excitement, and his bushy eyebrows moving up and down. “Yes, I’m Captain Dresser—Jack Dresser, as your uncle and all my old shipmates in the service used to call me, much at your service, ha, ha, ha!”

Bob and Nellie could not help joining in with the old gentleman’s laugh at his little joke, the Captain’s “Ha, ha, ha!” was so cheery and catching.

It was a regular jolly “Ha, ha, ha!”

The trio, thereupon, got very confidential together, Bob telling how they had got their dog Rover with them, only he was travelling in the guard’s van, being too big to be put in the box under the carriage, as he would have been if he’d been a little dog instead of a fine big black retriever, which he, Bob, was very glad to say he was, and “not a mere lady’s pet like a pug or a toy terrier,” while Nellie, in her turn, intimated her intention of making a collection of shells and seaweed when she got to the shore, which, she said, she longed to reach so as to ‘see the sea,’ that being the dearest wish of her heart.

The Captain, on his part, reciprocated these friendly advances in the heartiest way, expressing the strongest desire to make the acquaintance of Rover, as well as to take his fellow-travellers out in his yacht for a sail whenever the weather was fine enough; that is, if they promised to behave themselves properly, and always ‘did what they were told and obeyed orders,’ Captain Dresser saying, with an expressive wink that made him look more jackdaw-like than ever, that he invariably insisted, even in the presence of their “dear aunt Polly,” on being “captain of his own ship.”

They were in the midst of all these mutual confidences, the Captain chattering away like an old hen clucking round a pair of new-found chicks, and Bob and Nellie full of glee and exuberant anticipations of all the coming fun they were going to have afloat and ashore; when, suddenly, the light of the further window of the railway-carriage, opposite that near to which the trio were grouped in close confab, was obscured by a dark body pressing against it from without, as if some one was trying to gain admittance.

“Hallo!” cried the Captain. “What’s that—who’s there?”

But, before the old gentleman could rise from his seat, or

Bob and Nellie do anything save gape with astonishment, the window-sash was violently forced down; and, without a ‘by your leave’ or any word of warning, a strange uncouth figure, so it seemed to their startled gaze, came squeezing through the opening and fell on the floor of the carriage at their feet in a clumsy sprawl.