Who'd have looked for a garbled story of our misfortunes to outsail us?
However,--" he shook his head and brushed away all such anxieties,--"time
will tell. Now, gentlemen, to our accounts."
Before we had more than got well started, I heard a voice on deck that
brought me to my feet.
There was a step on the companionway, and then, "Father!" I cried, and
leaped up with an eagerness that, boy-like, I thought I concealed with
painstaking dignity when I shook his hand.
"Come, come, come, you young rascals!" my father cried. "What's the meaning
of this? First hour in the home port and you are as busy at your books as
if you were old students like myself. Come, put by your big books and your
ledgers, lads. Roger, much as I hate to have to break bad news, your family
are all in Boston, so--more joy to us!--there's nothing left but you shall
come straight home with Benny here. Unless, that is--" my father's eyes
twinkled just as Roger's sometimes did--"unless you've more urgent business
elsewhere."
"I thank you, sir," said Roger, "but I have _no_ more urgent business, and
I shall be--well, delighted doesn't half express it."
His manner was collected enough, but at my father's smile he reddened and
his own eyes danced.
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