Tom Pagdin, Pirate

The convict shook himself free from them as an infuriated boar will shake off a brace of dogs, seized the empty fowling piece by the muzzle, and swung it aloft to club out George Chard’s brains.

George, piecing rapid events together afterwards, remembered that a wild-eyed youth, armed with Dan’s rifle, suddenly appeared on the scene, followed by a red-headed youth waving an oar.

The boys sprang out of the scrub right behind Petit. George, whose head was in a whirl, declared that the red-headed boy brought the oar down with all the strength he was capable of on the convict’s neck, and that the gun flew out of the latter’s hands, and the stock struck him (George) on the side of the head.

The next minute the other boy was holding the muzzle of a smoking rifle to the prostrate convict’s ear, and inviting Dan and George to get up and bind that person, and making all sorts of statements and charges against the prostrate man’s history and character.

“Get the painter out of the boat!” cried Tom to Dave. “Move as much as an eye-lid,” he observed to Petit, “an’ I’ll shoot the top of your skull acrost the bloomin’ river!”

Petit was dazed. He did not offer to move.

“There’s ten shots in her yet,” Tom informed the prostrate foe, “an’ I’m too close to miss yer. I’ve got a little account with yer, any’ow. That knife ain’t no good to you no more,” he added sarcastically, “I got a better kind of knife to-day.”

He pressed the muzzle of the rifle closer against Petit’s ear to assure him that he was stating facts.

The argument was convincing. Petit looked perfectly diabolical, but he did not offer to put Tom’s repeated promises of blowing his head off to the test.

Dave came running back from the boat, breathless, with the painter in his hand.

“Make a slip knot in it,” ordered Tom, who had assumed control of the proceedings. It was his hand, and he meant to see it played.

“Put his hands behind his back!” he ordered, “draw it tight!”

George found himself obeying, without further question, the orders of the strange wild-looking youth, who seemed to have good and valid reasons for all he was saying and doing.

“Tighter!” cried the pirate captain; “draw it as tight as it will go. Don’t be afraid of hurtin’ him!”

“No,” said Dave who was buzzing round; “don’t trouble about him, he didn’t trouble about us, nor anybody else.”

“Now, Sour Krout,” cried Tom, when he had seen the murderer’s hands securely bound behind his back, “I’m goin’ to walk be’ind yer with this Winchester till I see you into the lock-up.”

Dan Creyton, recovering from his stupor, sat up on the leaves. The whole thing looked like a dream to him. He was trying to collect events and identities. George was on his knees beside him, inquiring if he were hurt.

“No,” said Dan slowly; “not hurt much; I think no bones broken. But what is it? What’s all this about? Somebody fell on me, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” said Tom, grimly; “somebody did. If you knew as much about him as we do you’d reckon you was lucky you ain’t got a knife in your neck.”

“He would, too,” corroborated Dave, “only I see ’im drop it when you fired the first shot.”

“I must ’a’ hit him then,” said Tom, in a glad voice. “I knowed I couldn’t ’a’ missed him clean at that distance. Why it wasn’t more’n fifty yards at the outside, an’ I killed a wallaby with a pea-rifle at fifty five.”

“Yes,” said Dave, “he’s hit on the arm; see the blood on his shirt.”

Petit scowled.

“What is the meaning of all this?” demanded Dan Creyton, rising painfully to his feet.

Petit broke into a torrent of words. He declared, in rapid, broken English, that he had been attacked by the two boys—they were his children by adoption. They had run away, he was following them; they had turned upon him, fired at him, and wounded him in two places. He had leaped upon the strangers not knowing where he was going or what he was doing, thinking, too, that they had joined the attack. He was innocent of all things. Let them release him at once; dreadful punishment would be meted out to them if they persisted. It was murder, outrage, against the law of the country. Would these gentlemen countenance such things? Compel that boy to remove the firearm; it might go off—then they would all be hung for murder. Let them untie the bonds at once.

“Hold on!” interrupted Tom Pagdin, turning to George and Dan. “I got something to say, too. I got,” he began, stepping back three or four paces, but still aiming at Petit’s head, “that is, me an’ my mate, ’as got to turn Queen’s evidence. We got to do it some time, so we might as well do it at onct an’ have done with it.”

“Say,” he went on, “have either of you chaps got a Bible on you?”

George shook his head. Dan regarded Tom with an air of attention, almost of respect. With returning perception he saw that there was something important behind all this—that some mystery was going to be cleared up, and instinctively he connected the group before him with the bank robbery—the murder, perhaps.

“No,” said Dan, humouring the boy, “neither of us carry Testaments about with us when we go shooting. Couldn’t you swear on something else?”

“Yes,” said Tom, after a moment’s thought. “We might swear on a knife. Gimme that sheath knife.”

Tom took the knife in one hand and held the rifle towards Petit with the other.

“It’s a private oath,” he exclaimed. “Come here an’ swear on it Dave; we got to before we can break the other oath we took up the river.”

Tom solemnly turned the haft of the knife to Dave’s heart and swore him to tell the truth, and then Dave did the same thing to Tom, repeating the elaborate oath which they had concocted on the island after the murder.

“Now,” said the pirate captain, aiming steadily at the convict all the time he was talking, “you begin at the beginning, Dave, and I’ll back you up.”

“It’s this way,” began Dave, keeping a wary eye on Petit, and looking now and then at his mate to see if he was going right. “Me an’ Tom run away from home because we got whaled. We reckoned to do a bit o’ piratin’ down the river—piratin’ and odd jobs that turned up. We found a boat, Tom, he was captain, an’ I was first mate.”

“I found ’er floating up the Broadstream one mornin’,” explained Tom. “She’s hid in the lantana now. He took her away from us and hid her. You kin go an’ see her if you don’t believe us.”

“Go on,” said Dan, picking up his gun and re-loading it. “We’ll see all about everything afterwards.”

“We was hid in the lantana,” resumed Dave, “the night we ran away from home, an’ we heard this German feller an’ another feller talkin’.”

Petit started.

“Keep still, Sour Krout!” admonished Tom. “I told you there was ten shots in this rifle, didn’t I.”

“You shoot ’im in the stummick, Tom,” enjoined Dave, stepping back, “if he tries to get at me.”

“Don’t you fret! He won’t never get within three yards of you!” replied Tom, “I’ll down him the first step he takes!”

“Well, we was hid in the scrub,” resumed Dave, speaking quickly, “an’ we heard ’im an’ another cove plannin’ to rob a bank!”

Dave paused to consult Tom with his eye.

“Go on!” cried Dan and George, eagerly.

Tom nodded.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell the whole truth, an’ nothink but the truth, so-’elp-you. We’ve turned Queen’s evidence. They can’t tech us; besides, we had nothink to do with it. We only seen it.”

“We heerd ’em plannin’ to rob the bank,” resumed Dave, “an’ we was frightened. We hid on an island next day, intendin’ to come an’ get our boat an’ go down the river; but these coves knowed where the boat was, and they came next night and took it, and did the robbery.

“How do you know they did the robbery?” asked George Chard, eagerly.

“We was there when they came back with the boat,” replied Dave, watching Petit closely.

“Yes,” said Tom, taking up the story; “it was an awful rainy night first, but the storm cleared off before twelve o’clock, and they brought the money back with them, and——”

“How do you know?” cried George and Dan, in one breath.

“We see it. It was in a canvas bag. Keep cool, Sour Krout! There’s ten shots in ’er—ten lovely shots, an’——”

“Never mind him,” said Dan Creyton, cocking his gun, “it will be bad for him if he attempts anything.”

“That’s right,” said Tom, giving Dan a look of gratitude and friendship, “an’ if you see what we see you wouldn’t ’esitate about it neither. We was layin’ in the scrub when they came back with the money what they robbed from the bank. They had a lantern—keep quiet Sour Krout; she’s got ten shots in ’er, yet I tell yer—an’ they went to bury the money. Leastwise, this cove gammoned they ought to do it. Then—keep quiet, Sour Krout; you’ll do that onct too often—then we seen——”

Tom paused to admonish the Frenchman once more.

“We seen him do it!!”

“Yes,” said Dave, solemnly; “we seen him do it! Both of us!”

“What?” asked Dan. “What was it he did?”

“Keep yer eye on him,” said Tom. “He’s a cold-blooded murderer an’ a robber, an’ worse! He killed his mate with a knife, that’s what he done!”

Petit’s face was a study in hate and rage.

“Keep cool, Sour Krout,” observed Tom, grimly. “You’ve had your innings. Yesterday we was your prisoners. You ’ad the upper hand, you did, and you treated me an’ Dave bad. That was your picnic, and me and Dave was invited. Now this is our picnic, an’ we’ve invited you!”

Dave proceeded to do a nervous war dance round the captive.

“Yah!” he cried. “Twice yesterday an’ once this mornin’ you offered to cut our throats didn’t yer?”

“After we see this cove murder his mate,” explained Tom and Dan, “we was frightened to go an’ tell. We thought he’d lay for us an’ kill us, too. So we came down the river in our boat an’ landed here; but he’d got here before we did some how or another, an’ he ketched us and took the boat from us, an’ drawed it up in the scrub so’s we couldn’t get away. He said he’d cut our throats with his knife if we didn’t do what he told us to, and we was frightened. We never let on to him we knowed what he done. We was goin’ to swim for it when we see you come in the boat. He was just goin’ to collar that boat an’ get away when he remembered about the money he stole, an’ went back for it. It’s a lucky thing he did. Me an’ Dave might a been dead now only he forgot that money.”

“The money!” exclaimed George. “Where is it now?”

“I dunno,” said Tom; “unless he dropped it by the tree when I fired at him first.”

“I took your rifle out of the boat and fired at him,” he added, apologetically, “because if I hadn’t got the rifle he’d have bloomin’ well got it, an’ it’s my opinion he’d a cleared the whole camp out afore he’d a stopped!”

“See what you missed, Sour Krout!” cried Dave, using the paddle as a jumping pole, and leaping about in a delirium of derisive joy.

Petit ground his teeth savagely and glared at his captors.

“Wouldn’t you like to be loose!” yelled Dave, who was more or less hysterical. “Wouldn’t you like me to untie you! Yah!”

Dan turned to George:

“Let us go and see if the money is really there!” he said.

“It’s there!” cried Dave. “I see him drop it when Tom fired! You wait!”

The excited first mate made a bolt into the scrub, and returned in a few minutes heavily laden.

“There!” he cried, triumphantly, throwing the canvas bag containing the plunder of the Bulk and Bullion on the ground at Dan Creyton’s feet. “Now you’ll believe what we say is true!”

“There does not seem to be any reason for doubting it,” observed Dan, “in view of the evidence before us. George, you’d better take charge of the B. and B. property for the present. This looks like a providential coincidence for you!”

“It looks,” replied George, in a bewildered way, “like a story out of a book!”

“My young friend,” remarked Dan to Tom Pagdin, “you had better allow me to uncock that rifle; there is a danger of it going off at present.”

“No,” said Tom, positively, “I’m goin’ to keep this rifle to his hind ear; I ain’t goin’ to trust him, now, after we’ve put him away.”

“No,” said Dave, “we ain’t goin’ to trust him—not more’n six inches from the barrel, anyway.”

“Well,” said Dan with a dry smile, “as you seem to be the leader of the party, you will be good enough to say what we are going to do next?”

“Will he be hung?” asked Tom in an anxious voice.

“I am not prepared to pronounce judgment,” replied Dan; “but if the statements you have just made fit with certain facts I have in my mind, the case will probably present important developments.”

“I don’t understand all that,” replied Tom; “but I reckon the best thing to do is to give this cove in charge!”

“A very reasonable suggestion, my young friend,” observed Dan. “How will you proceed to do it?”

“I’ll show you,” said Tom, with the air of a general. “You let your mate take his gun an’ go with Dave for our boat, and bring her round the Island ’longside yours.”

Chapter XIX.
THE PIRATES’ LAST CRUISE.

“This,” said Tom Pagdin, “is the pirate’s hour!”

It was. If any disinterested chronicler of piratical life could have beheld Tom—that ragged buccaneer in miniature—holding the muzzle of Dan Creyton’s Winchester to the prisoner’s ear, and seen Dave’s red head bobbing about the jungle in the nervous restlessness of victory, he would have got to work on the picture without delay.

“Now, Sour Krout!” continued the victorious pirate, “I’m goin’ to give you sailin’ orders, an’ remember she’s got ten shots in her yet!”

He issued his commands. George and Dave were to launch and bring the pirates’ boat round the island, Dan was to walk in front with the shot gun, while he urged Petit on from behind with the loaded Winchester.

When Tom broke this news to the escapee the latter appealed to Dan with threats. Dan observed briefly that Tom was taking all the responsibility, and hinted that he had the best end of the argument. If the boy was wrong and Petit was right, the matter could be adjusted afterwards. Meanwhile he advised him to do as he was told. Thereat Tom, perceiving that his new found friend was not going to interfere with him, pressed the cold muzzle of the rifle against the convict’s head, and convinced him that obedience was good.

It was an interesting procession, but Petit did not seem to appreciate it thoroughly. Every time he as much as looked round Tom would prod him in the back of the neck with his gun, and order “eyes front.”

When Petit growled he girded him with unpleasing remarks and uncomplimentary nicknames. As soon as they reached the boats Tom disposed his prisoner in the bow with due ceremony, and sat facing him, with the Winchester, while Dan rowed.

For further security he commanded the other boat to keep in close attendance, and ordered Dave for’ard, armed with Dan’s gun, giving him strict instructions to open fire at the first sign of hostilities. And Dave knelt down while George rowed, and took frequent aim at Petit to assure him that he was prepared to obey orders.

“All we want now,” observed Tom, as the boats pulled out slowly into the stream “is a band. It don’t seem quite right without a band, but I reckon they’ll fix that up afterwards.”

“Yes,” observed Dan, “I daresay you’ll get a reception in Wharfdale if that rifle don’t go off accidentally before we get there!”

“Pity we couldn’t send ’em word we was comin’,” mused the pirate chief. “They might make up a procession.”

“Very likely they would,” said Dan. “The Mayor would probably attend, and the aldermen and the principal citizens. You’ll be a hero, Tom, anyway.”

“That’s all right,” remarked Tom; “but we ain’t done half what we was goin’ to do, me an’ Dave. We ain’t made no raids, nor fought with any man-o’-war, nor had any duels with other pirates, nor anything.”

“Never mind,” said Dave, by way of consolation, “You’ve made a pretty valuable capture.”

“Him!” said Tom, with contempt, flourishing the rifle at Petit. “Oh, he’s nothing—only a cold-blooded German. It’s the Germans that’s ruinin’ this country, and spoilin’ the pirate business. I’ve heard the old man talkin’ about the way them Germans was makin’ things hard for white folks, but I never understood it like I do now.”

When they came within hail of the shore Tom commanded Dan and George to cease rowing.

“We ought ter hold a consultation of war,” he said, “afore we give up the prisoner; we oughter get it in writin’ that the admiral will have him ’ung at the yard arm before six bells. That’s the way they uster do.”

“I am afraid,” replied Dan, “that we’ll have to leave out that part of the ceremony. Besides the admiral is out of town and has taken the fleet with him.”

By this time a small crowd of curious people had commenced to assemble on the bank. This was what Tom Pagdin wanted.

He lay off and waited, killing time with trifles of persiflage and badinage until the entire town turned out. Then he stood up in the boat, and with one eye on the scowling face of Jean Petit, he gave the crowd a little of that gentleman’s history, and instructed them to get the strongest cell in the lock-up aired at once for his reception.

When the people got an inkling of what had happened, they howled questions at Dan and George.

But Dan simply referred them to Tom Pagdin. He said that Tom was the commander of a pirate fleet which happened to be in the offing, and that he had just dropped in at Wharfdale to clear up the mysteries of the bank robbery and murder which had been agitating their minds. He added dryly that it was mainly for the sake of giving his friend Chard an opportunity to bring libel actions against some prominent amateur detectives in Wharfdale that he had taken a temporary commission under Captain Thomas Pagdin.

“Why it’s that young Tom Pagdin that was lost up the river!” cried an excited citizen.

“An’ the red-headed kid’s Dave Gibson,” said another. “They’ve been dragging the Broadstream for ’em the last two weeks, everybody up there thought they was drounded!”

“Well I never!” ejaculated a woman in hearing. “Them two. You don’t tell me that they had anything to do with the robbery of the bank?”

And every youth in Wharfdale wished at that moment that he was Tom Pagdin or Dave Gibson.

“Hadn’t we better go ashore now,” suggested Dan.

“Hold on!” cried Tom. “They’ve got to give me and Dan a free pardon first, I’m going to hold him as a ’ostage until we get it.”

“You have already turned Queen’s evidence,” said Dan, gravely, “and the free pardon comes as a matter of course. I am the Postmaster here, and I keep the free pardon forms in my office. I’ll see to that. All you have to do is to tell the truth, or as much of it as you can remember, and instruct Dave to do the same.”

The excitement at the landing of the prisoner was such as Wharfdale in all its history had never known.

The news was telegraphed from one to another, and from the very outskirts of the town breathless inhabitants, young and old, came running to the river bank. Even the town cripple was in attendance.

Dogs followed their owners, met enemies and fought, but for once a dog-fight went unnoticed.

The keel of the boat stuck in the mud at the edge.

Tom ordered the crowd off and they obeyed. Then he commanded Petit: “Right turn! March!” and Petit cursed and obeyed also.

The pirate captain was tasting the sweets of power.

The people fell back and made a lane. Dan went up to the policeman and spoke to him.

The constable stepped beside the prisoner.

He did not raise any objections when Tom and Dave, still armed, walked behind until they came up to the lock-up, with the crowd at their heels, talking excitedly, and jostling one another along the roadway.

When Tom and Dave passed inside the station with Dan and George Chard, the people lined along the fence, theorising and arguing. It was nearly an hour before Dan re-appeared, and he had to get up on a stump and tell the people what had happened. The town would have signed a unanimous petition to the Postmaster-General to remove him at once if he had not done it.

So he got up and spoke all he knew about Petit, and about the way Tom had acted on the island. He said that he probably owed his life to Tom, who was a juvenile hero and a credit to the district. There had, he believed, been a lot of talk in Wharfdale about the bank robbery, and suspicion had fallen on an innocent man, but the recovery of the five hundred sovereigns (which he had just had the pleasure of handing over to the officer in charge, until such time as the whole matter was dealt with by a jury) showed that they had been wrong. It should be a lesson to them. The matter of the bank robbery was practically cleared up. The prisoner inside, on being questioned by the police, had admitted the robbery. He was a desperate man, an escapee from New Caledonia, and a charge of murder would be preferred against him at once.

The crowd cheered Dan. When George Chard came out of the station a prominent resident rushed and caught him by the hand. He was a J.P., and congratulated George fervently. When the people saw that the law as well as the evidence was with George, they all wanted to shake hands and congratulate him, too.

But George said simply that it was Tom Pagdin who deserved their congratulations and applause. Only for Tom the affair might never have been cleared up, and he might have lived on for years under a vague cloud of suspicion. It was Tom’s pluck and promptness which had brought them all out of the mess, and probably saved more than one life.

The constable brought Tom and Dave to the door of the station, gave them a good friendly clap on the back each, and handed them over to Wharfdale. And Wharfdale made a rush and got hold of the boys and lifted them shoulder high and carried them up the street in the direction of the principal hotel.

They made Tom get on the table, and tell the whole story, and the Pirate proved equal to the occasion.

He spoke continuously for two hours, with frequent pauses for the absorption of soft drinks, and cakes and gingerbread. And Dave stood at his right hand, like the trusty Sancho Panza he was, and corroborated every word, and more.

He told them how he and Dave had been driven by parental tyranny from home. Of the adventures they had had pirating, and of others that they had not had, such as an encounter with a bunyip, and a midnight fight with wild blackfellows. How he was bitten with a snake, and Dave sucked the wound, and tied string round it and saved him, and when, after a preliminary flourish he came to the story of the murder, the men held their breaths and the women became more or less hysterical.

The dramatic instinct was strong in the pirate chief. He neglected none of the local colouring. Dave substantiated everything, and threw in suggestions of his own.

Wharfdale mentally collected every word—cleaned him out, as a prospector might clean out a placer of diamonds—and when they had heard everything they went away to find somebody to astonish with the story.

Dan Creyton had gone up to the post-office to tell Nora, and send wires up and down the river, and by and-bye buggies and sulkies began to trot into town loaded with people who wanted to see and hear for themselves.

Tom had retold his yarn—with improvements, as they occurred—so many times that he was quite hoarse, and Dan took him and Dave away to his own place.

And when he presented his young guests to Nora, that young lady so far forgot conventionalities as to throw her arms round the pirates and hug them, in spite of their blushes and protests.

It was an hour of triumph, but its climax came when Dan asked Tom Pagdin if he would accept the Winchester as a gift!

The pirate chief was so overwhelmed with joy that he had to go out of the room, and turn catherine wheels in the yard.

Dave said, jealously, that Tom ought to have better manners, but when George promised him a single-barrelled shot gun as a memento, he went out and turned catherine wheels also.

Nora would not be satisfied until she heard Tom tell her it all himself. The pirate was over-stuffed and weary, but he complied.

When he came to the part where Petit fought with Dan and George on the island, Nora turned red and pale, and had to go out of the room for a while, which fact Tom duly noticed.

It was late that night when the adventurers retired.

Tom sat on the bed unlacing his boots.

“That girl!” he remarked to Dave, solemnly, “ought to be the queen of a pirate island. She’s too good an’ too pretty not to be.”

“She give me a pound note,” said Dave. “I reckon when we go piratin’ again an’ capture a treasure-ship we ought to stand to her.”

“Stand to her!” exclaimed Tom. “My word we will! If ever that girl gets carried off by another pirate an’ marooned on a desert island, because she won’t become his wife, let her send for me!”

“An’ me!” said Dave.

“For both of us. But I ain’t goin’ to wait for that!”

“How?”

Tom slowly drew off his sock. They had both been rigged out with new clothes by an admiring population.

“I’m going to do something now.”

“What?” asked Dave. “I don’t see what you can do.”

“Don’t you? That’s because you got no sense, Dave Gibson. Did yer see how her eyes opened when I was tellin’ her how Sour-krout was going to kill that cove Chard?”

“Yes, I see.”

“And did you notice how her face went red an’ pretty, like a peach when it’s ripening?”

“Yes.”

“An’ did you see how she had to go out of the room to dry her eyes?”

“Yes, I see her go out of the room, but I——”

“Of course not. You don’t know nothing about these things. I tell you what it is, Dave Gibson, that girl’s dead in love with that George Chard!”

“Did she tell you that?” asked Dave.

“No,” replied Tom, loftily. “She did not, but I know it. And what’s more, if he don’t marry her she’ll get sick and die of a broken heart.”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know? Ain’t I ever read anything? That’s what a girl does when she’s in love. But I’m goin’ to stop it. I’m goin’ to go to him and put it to him straight. If he’s anything of a man he’ll up and marry the girl, an’ if he don’t, well, I’ll challenge him!”

“Challenge him, how?” asked Dave, pausing, with his boot half off.

“Challenge him to fight a duel with Winchester rifles. You’ll have to be my second, an’ if I fall on the field of honour you’ve got to avenge me.”

“How am I going to do it, then?”

“If he shoots me you’ll have to challenge him next.”

“But suppose he shoots me?” asked Dave, doubtfully.

“You’ll have to get somebody to avenge you! That’s what they call a vendetta.”

“But how can I get anybody if I’m dead? I don’t want to fight any duel, anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want. You leave it to me. I’ll fix somebody to carry on the vendetta if we’re both shot!”

Tom considered for a long time, sitting on the bed, half undressed, his chin on his hand.

“I’ll tell you what!” he cried, jumping up, “we’ll issue an ‘ultermaterm.’”

“A what?”

“A ultermaterm. Gimme some pencil an’ paper, quick.”

Chapter XX.
THE ULTIMATUM.

George Chard was somewhat taken back when a small boy, acting as emissary for the pirates, handed him an unclean scrawl next morning. It was written with blue pencil, on a sheet of brown paper. Deciphered, it read as follows:—

George read and re-read this epistle several times, and then he despatched the emissary in search of the chief pirates.

Tom was closeted with George in his room at the bank for a good half hour, and then he came out with a satisfied and important air.

“What did he say? Is he going to fight us?” asked Dave, anxiously.

“No,” replied Tom, “worse luck. ’E caved in.”

“Is he going to marry er then?”

“I’m on a oath not to say anything about it,” replied Tom mysteriously. “But it’s goin’ to be all-right.”

And it was.

Jean Petit got his deserts in due time. The story of how Tom gave his evidence at the trial and had his name and a photograph of himself in the papers would make another book. The old man came down the river to claim his progeny and the latter’s share of the reward, but Tom had a strong friend in Dan Creyton. The latter took Pagdin, senior, in hand, and reasoned with him, ultimately effecting a compromise.

Dan said Tom was a clever boy, and had the making of a good man in him, and he bribed the old man to let his son stay down the river and go to school. Tom’s share of the reward, minus the bribe, was invested in his own name in such a way that no one, not even Tom himself, could draw it out for a number of years.

Then the old man got drunk, and went round telling people that he had been done in by Tom and his friends. He stayed about constituting himself a general nuisance, until the constable went to him and advised him to get away back home. And as Pagdin, senior, had a wholesome respect for the law, and perceived that he had made himself unpopular in Wharfdale, he went back to the punt, and left his son down the river to carve out a career for himself.

Dave Gibson’s stepfather came down on the quiet after Pagdin, senior, had gone home and endeavoured to abduct Dave; but Dave escaped from parental custody and hid in a cave in the bush for three weeks, during which time Tom Pagdin, by various stratagems, secretly kept him in tucker and necessaries. It was a royal time. So the stepfather accepted a compromise also, and Dan Creyton was left free to carry out a scheme which he had formed in his mind for the civilising of Tom and Dave and turning them into useful and law-abiding citizens. Dan found that there was any amount of scope for his labour, but whenever he and George lost patience with the boys, Nora would remind her brother and her lover that through our Younger Quixote and his Sancho Panza one had retained his life and the other gained his happiness. Which was a good deal to say. So they continued to have a good time, and Tom Pagdin shot all the cats in Wharfdale with his Winchester.