“They’ll worship him,” she whispered to her husband. (She meant, of course, that he would worship them.) It was an important point, this, of the captain: important as the personality of a headmaster.

“So that’s the nursery, eh?” said the captain, crushing Mrs. Thornton’s hand. She strove to answer, but found her throat undoubtedly paralysed. Even Mr. Thornton’s ready tongue was at a loss. He looked hard at the captain, jerked his thumb towards the children, wrestled in his mind with an elaborate speech, and finally enunciated in a small, unlikely voice:

“Smack ’em.”

Then the captain had to go about his duties: and for an hour the father and mother sat disconsolately on the main-hatch, quite deserted. Even when all was ready for departure it was impossible to muster the flock for a collective goodbye.