, and he was busy searching his pockets for an adequate return.
Then Captain Hardy came up, and first going over the empty house, came
out and bade his son accompany him to the station. A minute or two later
and they were out of sight; the sentimentalist stood on the curb gloating
over a newly acquired penknife, and Miss Nugent, after being strongly
reproved by him for curiosity, paced slowly home with her head in the
air.
Sunwich made no stir over the departure of one of its youthful citizens.
Indeed, it lacked not those who would have cheerfully parted with two or
three hundred more. The boy was quite chilled by the tameness of his
exit, and for years afterwards the desolate appearance of the platform as
the train steamed out occurred to him with an odd sense of discomfort.
In all Sunwich there was only one person who grieved over his departure,
and he, after keeping his memory green for two years, wrote off fivepence
as a bad debt and dismissed him from his thoughts.
Two months after the _Conqueror_ had sailed again Captain Nugent obtained
command of a steamer sailing between London and the Chinese ports.
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