The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did not know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, he caught himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his son; but he distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced youth who took delight in "calling down the old man" and reducing his mother to tears--such a person as adds to the gaiety of public rooms and hotel piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the wealthy play with or revile the bell-boys. But this well set-up fisher-youth did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes steady, clear, and unflinching, and spoke in a tone distinctly, even startlingly, respectful. There was that in his voice, too, which seemed to promise that the change might be permanent, and that the new Harvey had come to stay.
"Some one's been coercing him," thought Cheyne. "Now Constance would never have allowed that. Don't see as Europe could have done it any better."
"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the mother repeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least twice.
"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't care who the next is."
"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know papa would have made it up to him ten times over."
"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a thief because I couldn't find the bills in my pocket."
"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that--that night," sobbed Mrs. Cheyne.
"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said I wouldn't work--on a Banker, too--and of course he hit me on the nose, and oh! I bled like a stuck hog."
"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly."
"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light."
Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy after his own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that twinkle in Harvey's eye before.
"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me half now; and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do a man's work yet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, and I don't get rattled in a fog--much; and I can take my trick in light winds--that's steering, dear--and I can 'most bait up a trawl, and I know my ropes, of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows come home, and I'm great on old Josephus, and I'll show you how I can clear coffee with a piece of fish-skin, and--I think I'll have another cup, please. Say, you've no notion what a heap of work there is in ten and a half a month!"