Niven, however, always looked well, and Appleby sighed once or twice as he watched him, and found it hard not to envy him. Chriss could do everything well, and he was to sail south in a great iron merchant ship by and by. Appleby had lived beside the warm tropic sea in his childhood and had loved it ever since, but now, when the sight of the blue uniform of his friend stirred up the old longing so that his eyes grew almost dim, he knew that he was to begin a life of distasteful drudgery in an office. Presently Mr. Niven, who had a lean face and keen dark eyes, came in.
"All alone, Tom. Have the girls frightened you?" he said with a smile.
"Well, sir," said Appleby quietly, "you see, when I tried to turn over the music for Miss Lester I couldn't quite guess the right time and it only worried her, while it didn't seem much use to stand about in everybody's way. I'm going back when they start a game."
Mr. Niven nodded, for the unembarrassed gravity of the answer pleased him. "That's right. There's very little use in pretending one can do things when one can't," he said. "And you are going into business, eh! I fancy, however, that Chriss told me you wanted to go to sea."
"Yes," said Appleby with a reluctance that did not escape the listener. "Still, it seems all the owners ask a good big premium, and of course there is nobody to lend me the money. The little my father left was spent on my education, and my guardian writes me that he has heard of an office where I could earn enough to keep me."
"How did you know they wanted a premium?" asked Mr. Niven.
"Because I went round all the shipowners' offices I could find in the directory, sir," said Appleby.
The merchant nodded gravely to hide his astonishment. "Your father died abroad, and your mother too?" he said.
"Yes, sir," said Appleby quietly. "At Singapore. I can only just remember them. I was sent back to England when I was very young – and never saw either of them again."
Mr. Niven noticed the self-control in the lad's face as well as the slight tremble in his voice which would not be hidden. It was also if somewhat impassive a brave young face, and there was a steadiness that pleased him in the grave, grey eyes, he wished his own son looked as capable of facing the world alone.
"And you would still like to go to sea? It is a very hard life," he said.
Appleby smiled. "Isn't everything a little hard, sir, when you have no friends or money?"
"Well," said Mr. Niven dryly, "it not infrequently is, and I found it out at your age, though not many youngsters do. Who taught it you?"
Appleby looked a trifle confused. "I," he said slowly, "don't quite know – but it seems to make things a little easier now. Of course I did want to go to sea, but I know it's out of the question."
The merchant looked at him curiously. "You will probably be very thankful by and by, but hadn't you better go back to the others? We'll have a talk again."
Appleby went out to take part in a game, and Mr. Niven sat looking straight before him thoughtfully until his wife came in.
"They are getting on excellently, and I am glad the affair is a success, because it is difficult to please young people now-a-days, and I want Chriss to have only pleasant memories to carry away with him," she said.
She glanced towards the doorway with a little wistfulness in her eyes as Chriss passed by holding himself very erect while a laughing girl glanced up at him, and Mr. Niven guessed her thoughts.
"It will be his own fault if he hasn't," he said with a smile. "It was, however, the other lad I was thinking of."
Mrs. Niven sat down and gazed at the fire for almost a minute reflectively. "You have had an answer from that relative of his?"
The merchant nodded. "To-day," he said. "He is evidently not disposed to do much for the lad, and has found him an opening in the office of a very third-rate firm. Appleby does not like the prospect, and from what I know of his employers I can sympathize with him."
"He has no other friends. I asked him," said Mrs. Niven. "Jack, I can't help thinking we owe a good deal to that lad, and you know I am fond of him. He has always taken Chriss's part at Sandycombe, and you will remember he thrashed one of the bigger boys who had been systematically ill-using him. Then there was another little affair the night before they left the school. Chriss told Millicent, though he didn't mention it to me."
"Nor to me," said Mr. Niven. "A new, senseless trick, presumably?"
The lady smiled a little as she told the story of Jimmy's duck. "The point is that the plan was Chriss's, but when they were found out Appleby took the punishment," she said. "Now I scarcely fancy every lad would have done that, or have been sufficiently calm just then to remember that the master, who it seems was very busy, would probably be content when he had laid his hands on one of them. It was also a really cruel blow he got."
"Did he tell you?" said Mr. Niven dryly.
"No," said the lady. "That was what pleased me, because though I tried to draw him out about it he would tell me nothing, but a night or two ago I remembered there were some of his things that wanted mending. The lad has very few clothes, but he is shy and proud, and I fancied I could take what I wanted away and replace it without him noticing. Well, he was fast asleep, and I couldn't resist the temptation of stooping over him. His pyjama jacket was open, and I could see the big, purple weal that ran right up to his neck."
"If he knew, he would never forgive you," said Mr. Niven with a little laugh. "But what did they do with the duck? Chriss would certainly have forgotten it."
"Appleby brought it away, and gave it to some poor body in Chester," said Mrs. Niven.
"That was the one sensible part of the whole affair, but I want to know why you told me."
"Well," said the lady slowly, "you know he wants to go to sea, and I feel sure his relative would be only too glad to get rid of him. Now it wouldn't be very difficult for you to get him a ship almost without a premium."
"A ship?" said Mr. Niven with a little smile.
"Yes," said the lady. "Chriss's ship. Chriss is – well, you know he is just a trifle thoughtless."
"I fancy you mean spoiled," said her husband. "Still, as usual, you are right. It is quite probable that Chriss will want somebody with a little sense behind him. Going to sea in a merchant ship is a very different kind of thing from what he believes it is."
Mrs. Niven sighed. "Of course. Still, about Appleby?"
"Well," said her husband smiling, "I think I could tell you more when I have had a talk with the owners to-morrow."
He nodded as he went away, and it was next afternoon when he sat talking with an elderly gentleman in a city office.
"We would of course be willing to take a lad you recommended," said the latter. "Still, I was not altogether pleased to hear that my partner had promised to put your son into the Aldebaran."
"No?" said Mr. Niven with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now I fancied you would have been glad of the opportunity of obliging me."
The other man looked thoughtful. "To be frank, I would sooner have had the son of somebody we carried less goods for," said he. "With the steamers beating us everywhere we have to run our ships economically, and get the most out of our men, and I accordingly fancy that while it would not have made him as good a seaman, your son would have been a good deal more comfortable as one of the new cadet apprentices on board a steamer."
Mr. Niven smiled dryly. "I have no great wish to make my lad a seaman. The fact is, there's a tolerably prosperous business waiting for him, but in the meanwhile he will go to sea, and it seems to me that the best thing I can do is to let him. He will probably be quite willing to listen to what I have to tell him after a trip or two, and find out things I could never teach him on board your vessel."
"Well," said the shipowner with a little laugh, "it is often an effective cure as well as a rough one."
Mr. Niven left the office with a document in his pocket, and on