reached it. He gave a dry polish with the towel to the bits of him that seemed damp, put his clothes on, and hurried up the field.
“You’re not so early this morning,” said Mrs. Dixon, the farmer’s wife.
“No,” said John.
“What would you say to a bit of toffee?” said Mrs. Dixon. “I’d nothing to do last night so I fettled you up a baking. Four of you, aren’t there?”
“Thank you very much,” said John.
She gave him a big bag of brown toffee when she brought back the milk-can after filling it with milk.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“And you’ve been bathing already. I can see by your hair. You’d better put something into you. Stop a minute while I get you a bit of cake.”
After swimming, a bit of cake is very welcome, and John saw no harm in eating it. But while he was eating it, Mrs. Dixon said: “ Mr. Turner of the houseboat has been asking about you. You haven’t been meddling with his houseboat, have you?”
“No,” said John.
“Well, he seems to think you have,” said Mrs. Dixon. “You’d better leave Mr. Turner and his parrot alone.”
Yesterday suddenly became real once more. John remembered how he had thought he had seen the retired pirate on the houseboat shaking his fist at them. In a moment he was Captain John, responsible for his ship and his crew, and Mrs. Dixon, the farmer’s wife, was a native, not wholly to be trusted in spite of her toffee and cake.