there.'
'Staring!'
'He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking
the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I
don't think you can make much of a romance out of it, father.'
'I don't want to, my dear. Princes don't travel in the second-
cabin.'
'He may have been a prince in disguise.'
'More likely a drummer,' grunted Mr. McEachern.
'Drummers are often quite nice, aren't they?'
'Princes are nicer.'
'Well, I'll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of.
Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can't you
behave, like Rastus? Still, you don't snore, do you? Aren't you
going to bed soon, father? I believe you've been sitting up late and
getting into all sorts of bad habits while I've been away. I'm sure
you have been smoking too much. When you've finished that cigar,
you're not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!'
'Not one?'
'Not one. I'm not going to have my father getting like the people
you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don't want to
feel sudden shooting pains, do you?'
'No, my dear.'
'And have to take some awful medicine?'
'No.'
'Then, promise.'
'Very well, my dear. I promise.'
As the door closed, the captain threw away the stump he was smoking,
and remained for a moment in thought. Then, he drew another cigar
from his case, lighted it, and resumed the study of the little note-
book. It was past three o'clock when he went to his bedroom.
CHAPTER V
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
How long the light had been darting about the room like a very much
enlarged firefly, Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours,
for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and
for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he
fancied that he was dreaming still. Then, sleep left him, and he
realized that the light, which was now moving slowly across the
bookcase, was a real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or
he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be
taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly and
gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light
passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the
left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.
From the position of the ray, Jimmy could see that the burglar was
approaching on his side of the table. Though until that day he had
not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly
stamped on his mind's eye. He knew almost to a foot where his
visitor was standing. Consequently, when, rising swiftly from the
