लॉटरी मास्टर

लॉटरी मास्टर Ten years of prestige "'If you'll promise me you'll stay away from my quail an' partridge I'll catch 'em fer nuthin,' I told him. 'Only,' I says, 'remember, I do what I please with 'em, after I get 'em.' He looked at me as though he'd like to choke me, but he said all right, he'd leave my birds alone.,"Let's hustle," urged Billy. "They may come back any minute.","Maybe you're right," Maurice said, "but I'm goin' t' tell you I ain't feelin' any too much like prowlin' 'round that ha'nted house this night er any other night.","Are you not afraid to take the command of a ship, sir?" enquired Miss Acton, who continued to peer at Mr Lawrence over her glasses.,Another moment and he was outside beside Lou, bag and box in his arms. Croaker was nowhere to be seen; neither was the gold piece which he had dropped in his amazement at sight of Billy and Lou.，Mr John Eagle made no answer.，"Cause I'm goin' down an' find him. I'll beg you off this time, Anse, if you'll do as I say."，This vessel was the Minorca, which, as we[Pg 235] know, had left Old Harbour shortly after eight o'clock that morning, and now she had shrunk the Mother Country into a delicate vision, and slightly leaning from the wind was sliding with a steady keel through the water which beautified the copper that shone ruddily under her weather-bow with the prisms and crystals and gems of the ocean fountain. In spite of Admiral Lawrence's admiration of her, she would excite laughter in this age as an example of the stump-ended fabrics which the shipwrights of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries were building for sailors. Yet many of these structures made wonderfully long voyages and kept the seas, touching here and there to careen, for as lengthy a period as the average life of the modern steel fabric."Sister, is your opinion of Lucy such that[Pg 191] you imagine she can have anything to do with Mr Lawrence unknown to me?"

Mr Lawrence was a quality guest, and being a frequenter, had a place of his own, which was on the left hand of the landlord; thus he got the fish of his choice, the cut of meat he liked best, the best draught of ale the house could[Pg 127] supply, and this ordinary was too useful to him to allow him to be in debt to it.,"She remained on board, and is in my cabin, and I shall occupy the cabin which was fitted up professedly for a sick-bay.","I demand to be set at liberty!" cried Lucy, in the strained, wild voice that had frightened the hunchback steward. "The villain who commands this ship lured me into her by pretending that Captain Acton, who is my father and the owner of the vessel, lay[Pg 276] seriously injured through an accident, and wished to see me. I demand to be returned to my home! I have been stolen away by a base artifice. The crew of this ship are the servants of my father, and they would know his wish must be to recover me, and your duty, and Mr Eagle's, and the men's, is to turn the ship for Old Harbour, and surrender me up to my father. If this is not done I shall go mad. I am mad now. The wretch who by a lie has seduced me into this vessel, has driven me crazy.","Six hundred tons out and six hundred home. That is twelve hundred. I don't know what freights are, but they must rule high, and, kindly creature as he is, Acton is the man to know to what market to drive his pigs. I think you have done very well; besides obtaining occupation which may conduct you to something higher or at least better, you stand to clear about a hundred pounds by this voyage——","God love us, it's a crow!" he cried, "and the rascal has appropriated my glasses! Laid 'em on my chair-arm for an instant and the cheeky beggar swooped in through the open window and picked 'em up.",CHAPTER XI PRINCESS TATTERS,His astonishment was unaffected and amazing; with the habit of senility he kept on muttering to himself aloud whilst he perused and re-perused the letter.,"Now that we've got ol' Harry's charm along with my rabbit-foot," Billy was saying, "we ought'a be able to snoop 'round in the ha'nted grove an' even hunt through the house any time we take the notion. Maybe we'll get a chance to do it to-day.","Well then, you best let me be. What I feel he should get, he's goin' to get, and get right. You keep out'a this, Tom Wilson, if you want me to keep on; that's all.","The Admiral and I," answered Captain Acton, talking as though slightly embarrassed, though moved by other feelings, "consider that we cannot do better than remove Mr Lawrence into this ship, and carry him to England.","But suppose that fellow Paul had not met you?" said Captain Acton.,"Old Scroggie's ghost huntin' fer the lost money," whispered Walter, "Oh, gosh! let's leg it!'.