Chapter 5

A NAVAL CONQUEST.

It was the habit of the Doctor and the Admiral to
accompany each other upon a morning ramble between
breakfast and lunch. The dwellers in those quiet
tree-lined roads were accustomed to see the two figures,
the long, thin, austere seaman, and the short, bustling,
tweed-clad physician, pass and repass with such
regularity that a stopped clock has been reset by them.
The Admiral took two steps to his companion's three, but
the younger man was the quicker, and both were equal to
a good four and a half miles an hour.

It was a lovely summer day which followed the events
which have been described. The sky was of the deepest
blue, with a few white, fleecy clouds drifting lazily
across it, and the air was filled with the low drone of
insects or with a sudden sharper note as bee or bluefly
shot past with its quivering, long-drawn hum, like an
insect tuning-fork. As the friends topped each rise
which leads up to the Crystal Palace, they could see the
dun clouds of London stretching along the northern
sky-line, with spire or dome breaking through the
low-lying haze. The Admiral was in high spirits, for the
morning post had brought good news to his son.

"It is wonderful, Walker," he was saying, "positively
wonderful, the way that boy of mine has gone ahead during
the last three years. We heard from Pearson to-day.
Pearson is the senior partner, you know, and my boy the
junior--Pearson and Denver the firm. Cunning old dog is
Pearson, as cute and as greedy as a Rio shark. Yet he
goes off for a fortnight's leave, and puts my boy in full
charge, with all that immense business in his hands,
and a freehand to do what he likes with it. How's that
for confidence, and he only three years upon 'Change?"

"Any one would confide in him. His face is a
surety," said the Doctor.

"Go on, Walker!" The Admiral dug his elbow at him.
"You know my weak side. Still it's truth all the same.
I've been blessed with a good wife and a good son, and
maybe I relish them the more for having been cut off from
them so long. I have much to be thankful for!"

"And so have I. The best two girls that ever
stepped. There's Clara, who has learned up as much
medicine as would give her the L.S.A., simply in order
that she may sympathize with me in my work. But hullo,
what is this coming along?"

"All drawing and the wind astern!" cried the Admiral.
"Fourteen knots if it's one. Why, by George, it is that
woman!"

A rolling cloud of yellow dust had streamed round the
curve of the road, and from the heart of it had emerged
a high tandem tricycle flying along at a breakneck pace.
In front sat Mrs. Westmacott clad in a heather tweed